Dirty Harry

Glad you got it working. Sorry, but I have no clue about Dscaler and netmeeting. H.

No, there wasn't supposed to be a driver. The program runs in a closed memory space and does NOT need an external driver. I haven't even bothered installing any Hauppauge drivers stuff for my card, and the device manager shows a yellow exclamation mark for my Multimedia controller. Dscaler beats any TV app I've tried and runs fine without it. H.

Don't know your hardware but assuming it's a TV card...try Dscaler available here. It contains its own driver and its freeware. H.

Is it that hard to understand that your soundcard, or any other device, isn't "on 12 with a bunch of other stuff ". It just looks that way. Your system doesn't work with ACPI - well fine, can be, don't use ACPI then. But for any readers who are about to install W2K or XP - try an install with ACPI before you believe that it causes problems. H.

I've never tried XP with <256 MB of RAM and that could very well be a, perhaps the, problem. NormaCG however writes "bought a new IBM computer with Windows XP installed". I'd take it back to the shop and get a refund or, if not possible, have them fix it. I say refund because somehow the combination is strange: "new IBM computer"+ "XP installed" + "Celeron" +"128 MB of RAM". Any chance you can post a link to the shop and the model number of the PC? FYI, XP should load in less than a minute or so on a desktop machine. H.

Ooh, I forgot to mention, two of my systems are VIA based. It is a perfect world... H.

I had one problem with Speedfan (or at least had when I tested it a few months ago). My HD's are attatched through the HPT controller (on an ABIT KG7-R) and Speedfan cannot read the temps from my IBM harddrives which supposedly are supported. CoolMon, its just geek magic, configurable text right on your desktop. Mmmm... It doesn't read the HD temps though. H.

Hey BladeRunner, I'm in that perfect world too. 3 ACPI PC's at home, + a laptop, lots of free beer and hordes of scantily clad females... Some of the hardware is from around '96 (a SCSI card for example) but ACPI still works. A few months ago I tried XP on a 250 Mhz machine on a old Asus mobo so old it didn't even have USB ports (just for fun) and guess what - ACPI worked! Right now I have ACPI and XP running on a networked 450 Mhz machine (old Abit BE6 mobo, Matrox Millennium graphics card, legacy 16 bit sound card etc) without a hitch. On my main system which is pretty crowded (SCSI card, TV card, Raid controller, 4 IDE devices, two pointing devices, two printers one LPT, one scanner etc, hell I even use the serial port occasionally) I must have done between 10 and 20 W2K/XP installs and not seen an IRQ conflict - not once. And I've just left all the HW in place when reinstalling. rjs82vette, when did you try a ACPI install last time - which OS? Are you also assigning the memory ranges manually? Honestly I can't believe that you have any probs on a all PCI system on a Mobo made after 1999. How about posting a hardware list on the system you have this problem with and (if you remember) the devices that had an IRQ conflict ? H.

Motherboard Monitor, which you find HERE. If there is a tiny bit of geek in you, you may want to spice it up by installing CoolMon on top of it, that excellent piece of freeware you'll find HERE. H.

Sigh, the point is there is normally, on a PCI card /Windows based system, no reason to disable ACPI. The hardware and software is built to use it. And ACPI is not really assigning IRQ 9 to anything, read BladeRunners post, doesn't really need any elaboration. H.

Right, turn OFF ACPI, use a ISA Video Card and switch back to 5,25 inch floppies. WTF ? There is no point with current PnP hardware to stubbornly trying to assign IRQ yourself. Unless you have very old or very exotic hardware, you should of course install XP with ACPI if you are planning on using any power saving options. If you install from scratch, you have to resort to mild violence not to install ACPI. H.

Quote: Originally posted by plato Powered by the revolutionary RADEON™ 8500 GPU and 64MB DDR memory for the most advanced 3D graphics in its class ATI's innovative TRUFORM™, SMARTSHADER™ and SMOOTHVISION™ technologies make 3D characters and objects more realistic ATI's HYPER Z™ II technology conserves memory bandwidth for improved performance in demanding applications ATI's latest 3D rendering technologies, CHARISMA ENGINE™ II and PIXEL TAPESTRY™ II, power incredible 3D processing capabilities leading to unbelievable graphics quality More marketing babble than you can read in an evening. Incredible that people fall for it. Any PC parts manufacturers pages are stuffed with superlatives and SUPER MEGA ™ 's that do not really mean a thing. Independent testing is what you should follow when selecting parts. As Dilbert said: "Marketing - two drinks minimum" H.

Its long ago, and I'm not sure I got this right. Anyhow I've understood that this is due to some PnP standard / white paper which Bill decided wasn't that cool at all, at the end of the day. So he made his PnP OS to work a bit differently. Now, my understanding is that if you set PnP OS to enabled, the BIOS will try to give the OS an early start by assigning some resources to the very basic stuff, videocards etc. MS decided that they do this better, so their OS will (maybe) attempt to reassign them. If you set PnP OS to disabled, the OS does it all, which is what MS wants. Anyhow, When you use a MS (PnP) operating system you should definately set the PnP Operating System in the bios to disabled or no sorta because the OS is more PnP than the BIOS. Confused ? Never mind, just set it to no. As BladeRunner implies, this is (was) MS recommendation. I've seen that knowledgebase article too, but it was nowhere to be found when I just looked. H.

I think he thinks he has all songs made, and just wants to check... H.

Hell yeah, I'd be delighted to go back to Matrox, their 2D picture was always better than the competition. But I'd be surprised to see tests confirm that they - out of the blue - come with a card that surpasses Nvidas 3D performance. Besides, they'd have to work magic on drivers too, for the last two-three years games were more or less developed to run well on Nvidias chip (and the other way around). H.

Details on the new Matrox card will be announced May 14th, according to an e-mail I got from them yesterday. The new card can be alot, but it is unlikely to shake Nvidias Ti4600 position as the No 1 gamers choice. ATI starts remainding me of Apple and Linux, its a religion for their users. And now we have some true believers among us, Hallelujah. H.

This sounds pretty strange unless its because of the type of disk you use. As you have already tried CloneCD and Nero it sortta suggests a hardware failure but you are able to burn correctly. It could also be that the different programs have messed up each other. When you say "Nero supports this burner" does it mean that the name of the burner shows up in Nero correctly ? Not sure what you ment on the Quick vs Full erase answer, do you have a problem with both or only with quick erase ? I'd try reinstalling Nero (deinstall all other burnning software first) and test with a new basic (650 MB 4x) CD-RW disk first, but then I'd try the drive in your other machine, just to make sure its OK, even if it still burns. If it works there you at least know that it still works... H.

I recall having ACPI up and running on a Abit BE-6 (rev 1) board, but not on XP. On my KG7, I have a vague feeling that ACPI is not working quite as well under XP as under W2K, but it could of course be some tweaking that is causing the issues Plato, if you are just seeing this in your system log, without other problems I wouldn't worry about it. H.

I use a Swiftech, but there are propably better ones by now. Alpha and Thermalright enjoy a good reputation, but at the end it comes down to how much air your fan is blowing on the heatsink. More air = more noise. This LINK contains comparisons of many coolers so you get the idea. At the main page of the site there are more links to articles than you care to read. H.

No Abit KT7, but one Abit KG7 (with an 133 T-bird 1400@1600), one Abit KA7 and one Abit BE6 up and running as we write. Both the latter were o/c'd in their days of glory. For overclocking, Abit is about as good as it gets. Another thing is that according to a very quick look at Abits web page, the KT7A newest BIOS update doesn't support a faster CPU than 1.4GHZ, and that only on the KT7A version of your board. Now, I'm not going to read through all info on your mobo, but you should. Check, and doublecheck that your boards BIOS supports settings for a faster CPU than you are buying. If the BIOS supports a maximum multiplier of 10.5 it means that you can only o/c the bus speed (the default for an Athlon 133/1400 is 10.5 x 133 Mhz). The idea of shorting the L1 bridge is to manipulate the otherwise locked multiplier. The L1 trick works on the T-birds, but nobody can ever give you a guarantee what results you'll achieve, too many variables involved. It is however not mobo dependent, as long as the bios allows you to set the multiplier and voltages correspondingly. Again, the mobo doesn't know if the multiplier bridge was shorted at the factory or at your desk - as long as its shorted properly and you don't squirrel. This LINK has more info, among it a database on results for various mobo/CPU's. The Mother Of All Overclocking bulletin boards you'll find HERE. Typing "overclock Athlon" in Google will also give you lots of good stuff to read. Good luck ! H.

No, you can select regional settings (number, currency time format etc) but not the language. For W98 I believe the only option is to get hold of the CD Anglaise. H.

ACPI assigns everything a IRQ so you don't have to. This looks like all HW sharing an IRQ (usually #11) but its nothing to care about. Just check your BIOS settings (APM/ACPI) before you do the install, and remeber that ACPI only works if all relevant hardware and drivers support it. H.

Quote: Well, I found out that KT7 does not like AMD TBird 1.2 or 1.4 L1 bridge locked. ( Where did you find that rumour? IMO its crap, some of the T-birds have always been factory unlocked (I have one, thats for sure). BTW unlocked means bridge closed, locked means bridge cut. Who is going to tell the mobo that the bridge on the CPU was closed after it left the factory ? I'd say that you can safely buy the fastest CPU the newest BIOS supports and overclock the heck out of it - thats what Abit boards are made for. And forget the shim, its for whimps and reduces heat transfer. Just be careful, you've learned it the hard way! H.

This is a long shot but apparently some older burners have difficulties with newer CD-rw disks (certified for speeds faster than 10x), but I thaught that they simply couldn't burn them at all. Some suggestions & questions: Try a basic (1-4x) 650 MB RW disk and see if that works ? Can you burn an empty disk without problems ? Is the problem the same when you try quick erase as full erase ? What does Nero say at the end of the process ? Is Nero finding your burner correctly? You are on W2K right ? Have you tried reinstalling Nero ? Have you had any other CD burning software installed ? Of course it could also be that your burner is defect. You could d/l some trialware and see if that works. Check that whahever you choose to install is able to erase CD's in trial mode, its generally not a good idea to install too many burnning programs, some of them don't coexist in peace. Or you could try to move the burner to the XP machine, XP has built in burning software. H.

If I'm not mistaken the current version of X-Setup is old, actually it came out before XP. I recall testing it a while ago, and there were several features that did not work at all or were sortta out of place in XP. Didn't give it that much attention, though. What is it that you want to tweak ? Many things can easily be done by TweakUI and the tools that come with windows. H.