Jack Carr
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Posts posted by Jack Carr
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Nothing besides CM. I was playing Diablo II for a bit but only CMBB and CMAK now.
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If anyone is interested, I just RMA'd the second DFI board back to ZIPZOOMFLY. I think DFI has some quality control issues.
I'm going to try a Chaintech mainboard with the same chipset, NForce2.
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Thanks for the info. I just checked out the DFI board that I ordered and it does have the MCP-T chipset. I have a pretty good soundcard, Creative Labs 5.1 Soundblaster Gamer card. Is the onboard sound better than what the Creative Labs card can provide?Originally posted by Hpt. Lisse:I've had great luck with Epox mobos, have had several in a row that never let me down. Usually pretty cheap, too. For high-end Gigabyte is my favorite.
The thing to remember w/NForce2 mobos is to get one that has the MCP-T (not just MCP) southbridge chipset. The "T" is what gives you serious on-board audio muscle.
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Just heard from ZIPZOOMFLY. They tested the motherboard I RMA'd back to them and it was, in fact, defective. Makes me feel a bit better anyway. I should have the new one early next week. If that's DOA I'll flip. Hopefully they will let me exchange it for a different brand mainboard.
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I am also in the process of such an upgrade. I am getting rid of an ASUS A7V8X and going to a DFI Infinity Ultra II with the same chipset that you mention, NForce2. I purchased not only the mainboard but a brand new Western Digital hard drive as well. The DFI board was dead on arrival. My reasons for upgrading were different from yours but the moral of my story is, "Stay away from DFI boards." After my nightmare of the DOA board, I started to do some research on this particular board and found that the DOA problem I experienced was not uncommon with this particular DFI board and DFI boards in general. I also found in a few reviews on NEWEGG.com that this board has a hard time seeing Western Digital hard drives. "Woe is me!"Originally posted by Wally's World:Howdy!
I'm just in the process of upgrading my motherboard to a faster and newer board (from an ASUS A7V8X-MX with a slow KM400 chipset to an Epox 8RDA+ board) and the technician just told me that my Windows 98 First Edition will not work properly on the newer NForce2 board.
Anyone out there have a DFI motherboard with a success story? I need a "pick me up".
As usual, Schrullenhaft's words of wisdom ring true. The only thing I can say is that Windows XP is a very stable operating system. I have two machines that are running XP Pro and I love it. Well...scratch that. I have one machine. I am waiting for a fully functional DFI Infinity Ultra II motherboard to get the second machine up and running. Please hurry up ZIPZOOMFLY!
Thanks everyone.
[ April 16, 2004, 09:49 AM: Message edited by: Jack Carr ]
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Yeah that's what it was alright. That Symantec Event Manager is murder!
If you want to add two minutes or more to your PC boot-up time just enable that service.
It's a peach!
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Bump!
Hope some of you can be helped by this. It really makes a difference when your machine boots up quickly like its supposed to.
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This happened to me last night with a late model Stug IV against several Shermans, some 75MM and some 76MM, in CMAK. The Stug had great position but must have decided that it was outnumbered. I kept sending it back in but it kept seeing more than one enemy vehicle and backing off. Only on occassion would it take a shot before popping smoke and reversing out.Originally posted by RawRecruit:In a PBEM I've just had a StuG IIIG pop smoke and reverse from a duel with a 'Valentine?' tank. My first couple of shots missed. They scored a track hit and a lower hull penetration, both with 'no serious damage'. Now, I've never duelled a Valentine before, but the StuGs 75/L48 is surely a match for it?
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SUCCESS! This was the key. Not only did I see potential problems under Application but also under System in the event viewer. There were several services that were taking a long time to boot up. I looked for those services and found that I had them set to Manual load. I set them to AUtomatic and gave that a try. No luck. Then I went back in and Disabled those services. SUCCESS! 45-50 Second Boot-Up. Thanks Frenchy. This immediately showed me what services were not coming up quickly. The problem services in my case were Symantec Event Manager and Symantec Password Validation. Everything else was coming up immediately except these two services.Originally posted by Frenchy:As a thought go to Control Panel, Administrative Tools, then choose event viewer. Then click application and see if you have any warnings during boot up. You might be able to narrow the problem. I found that my back up dial up modem was crapped out by using the above method. Reloaded the drivers and no more warnings on boot. Still hasn't completely cured my slow boot problem but I am getting closer. I'll know tonight and will post my findings.
Thanks to all who posted. To those of you still having a problem, take a look at Frenchy's post and see what services are delayed in coming up. If you can stand to disable those services your boot-up might just be positively affected.
God Bless!
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That sounds promising. I'll definitely give that a try.Originally posted by Frenchy:As a thought go to Control Panel, Administrative Tools, then choose event viewer. Then click application and see if you have any warnings during boot up. You might be able to narrow the problem. I found that my back up dial up modem was crapped out by using the above method. Reloaded the drivers and no more warnings on boot. Still hasn't completely cured my slow boot problem but I am getting closer. I'll know tonight and will post my findings.
Thanks
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Thanks for the suggestions. RAM should be the easiest thing you mentioned. The slow-boot machine has three 512MB modules. I certainly could swap the video cards. They are the same card but a different make, the fast-boot up machines card is a Chaintech while the other slow-boot machines card is a Jaton. This shouldn't really make a difference as both cards are Nvidia GeForce Ti4600 128MB 4X AGP. Currently, both are using the same exact driver as well.Originally posted by Andrew Kulin:Couple of other things to check since I see both machines are real close in specs. If you are comfortable playing around with computers then you may consider these suggestions.
Compare the two BIOSes. Same versions? Same BIOS settings?
Also maybe an issue with RAM. Can you run machine with only one stick at a time and see what impact that has? Can you switch sticks from one machine to the other and see if that has an impact on boot times.
Also, as a lot of the components look identical, you could try swapping them one at a time to see if they are impacting boot times (e.g., sound card, video card). Do NOT swap OS hard-drives/mobos as Win XP cannot handle that at all in my experience (but add-in cards should be okay). Do all of this one at a time to see if you can isolate what might be giving you a problem (if it is hardware related)
But only if you are comforatble with this.
I'll try some of these things this weekend.
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I do use Windows Update on both machines. Both are up to date. Whatever Microsoft has thrown out for Windows XP Pro I've got it on both rigs. It's a real puzzler...Originally posted by Vomitmeister:I have a second machine as well. The machine I was talking about as an Athlon 2600. My other machine is a much slower Athlon 850Mhz system and it was booting faster than the 2600. The 2600 has a Geforce 3 ti200 vs. a TNT2 in the old machine.
Do you use Windows Update on both machines? I vaguely recall now that my slowdown occured while updating drivers and other things with Windows Update. Maybe there is a security patch that screws up some driver that Nvidia uses. Just throwing out ideas.
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Just a side by side for those following this thread.
I have two machines, nearly identical. Here are the specs for both:
Machine A
ASUS A7V8X
AMD Athlon XP 2700+ (2.17ghz Thoroughbred Core)
Kingston 1.5GB DDR PC2100 RAM
GeForce Ti4600 128MB 4X AGP
Creative Labs SoundBlaster 5.1 Gamer Sound Card
Maxtor 60GB 7200RPM 2MB Cache Hard drive
Windows XP Pro
CD-ROM 52X
CD-RW
Floppy Drive
(BOOT UP TIME - 2 Minutes 45 seconds)
Machine B
ASUS A7V8X
AMD Athlon XP 2800+ (2.25ghz Thoroughbred Core)
Kingston 1GB DDR PC2700 RAM
GeForce Ti4600 128MB 4X AGP
Creative Labs SoundBlaster 5.1 Gamer Sound Card
Western Digital 80GB 7200RPM 8MB Cache Hard Drive
Windows XP Pro
CD-RW
DVD/CD-RW
Floppy
(BOOT-UP TIME 50 Seconds)
The funny thing is, Machine A used to beat Machine B's boot-up time by 5 seconds! Now it gets beat by 2 minutes 5 seconds!
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Does the AI just decide outright that this vehicle or that gun will be destroyed if the means to do so are present on the battlefield?
Please tell me it ain't so!
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Thanks. I will look at upgrading to the official release of the video driver. I have not tried booting up in safe mode yet. What will this tell me? MSCONFIG is clean as far as what is loading up. I have BOOTVIS and have used it. Doesn't really tell me much but I'll admit I'm not sure what to look at as far as that software is concerned. My honest opinion is that it is one of two things:Originally posted by Vomitmeister:I don't remember what version I was at, but after upgrading to 56.64, it cleared it up. Does it boot up slow when you boot in safe mode? If not, use msconfig to try to determine if it is anything that is auto-starting. If you turn everything off and it still boots slow, then it could be indicating a driver issue, video or other. Otherwise, work through the services and try to figure out which one is the culprit. Could mean rebooting many times. You can also try doing a Google search for BootVis. It supposedly can be used to track down what is loading during boot and how long it takes. My machine was pretty messed up when I tried it, and I only ran into more problems. However, you could give it a shot. If you want, I can e-mail the program to you, if you want it. It is only 329K.
1) Registry bloat - as Schrullenhaft suggested
2) Motherboard on the fritz
I have always suspected that the motherboard was dying a slow death whose first symptom was a slow boot-up.
I was considering upgrading my other machines motherboard to one with a 333mhz bus. Perhaps this would be a good excuse. Both of my machines have an ASUS A7V8X motherboard at the same BIOS revision level. Easy swap and then my better machine gets a quicker motherboard.
I'll see how long I can live with the 2 minute 45 second boot-up before I pull the trigger on this one though.
Thanks to everyone for coming to my aid on this.
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I'll check the capacitors on the board. Actually, the PC is not that new. Built from components over several years. The motherboard is an ASUS A7V8X, older board. I'll take a look at the board to see if any of the capacitors look strange. As far as Norton goes, I have read that Norton Anti-Virus has caused certain slow boot-ups on some machines. I'm thinking about removing it entirely and seeing how things boot-up then. Thanks for the advice.Originally posted by Andrew Kulin:Something to consider although from what I can see from 2 of your 3 system specs (MeatEtr and Jack Carr) it looks like you have fairly new rigs. Check you mobo and add-on cards for leaky capacitors (the cylindrical doo-hickeys)
This happened to my old rig (RIP) which was a 1 GHz Celeron and it caused all kinds of boot issues/hang-ups. It started slowly and progressively got worse over a period of a month after which it would not start period!
Leaky capacitors will look bulged at the top or you may see evidence of leakage. There was a problem with capacitors a few years ago due to the theft of an incomplete capacitor electrolytic fluid formula (or whatever it is inside) which was then used in manufacturing gazillions of these things that then were used on all kinds of electronic components. The stolen fluid recipe is prone to failure.
A long-shot to be sure, but who knows, eh?
Also, Jack, I noticed in your initial post you stated that you run Norton AV with the Auto-Protect off???? Norton AV Help states:
"Keep Auto-Protect turned on (enabled) at all times to prevent viruses from infecting your computer. Auto-Protect works in the background, without interrupting your work.
Auto-Protect automatically:
Detects and protects you against all types of viruses, including macro viruses, boot sector viruses, memory resident viruses and Trojan horses, worms and other malicious code.
Protects your computer from viruses transmitted through the Internet, checking all files you download from the Internet, including Java Applets and ActiveX controls.
Keeps your system safe at all times by checking for viruses every time you use software programs on your computer, insert floppy disks or other removable media, and modify or access documents.
Monitors your computer for any unusual symptoms that may indicate an active virus."
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Applied these mods to CMBB last night. Fantastic! Much, much better than the stock bases. Gotta love the detail! If your machine can handle it, it adds so much to the visual. Thanks again.
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My Nvidia drivers are 56.55. The driver I have is not the official release version. I have no problems with video whatsoever. What driver version do you have?Originally posted by Vomitmeister:Have you checked the version of your NVidia drivers? They released new ones a couple of weeks ago.
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Nothing autoloading on boot. I've pretty much stripped that stuff out so as not to take up unnecessary system resources. I'll check again to make sure.Originally posted by Jack Carr:</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Schrullenhaft:
Do you have anything autoloading on boot (application, new hardware driver, etc.) ? Do you have any USB devices plugged in ?
Between the time it used to boot up within 45 seconds and your current boot up speed, have you installed a lot of software programs ? Has new hardware been added (internal or external) ? Is there a CD in any of your CD/DVD drives (remove them if this is the case) ?
Is your computer hooked up with a network connection (broadband internet or home network) ? If it is, disconnect it on the next boot to see if this makes a difference.
It may also be a case of 'registry bloat' which can happen with the installation (and potential removal) of a lot of software. I'm not sure if the registry gets defragged or not with the built-in Microsoft defragger. Here's some registry related utilities that may help, but I can't vouch for any of them.
I do have a few USB devices plugged into it. Scanner and printer as well as the APC battery backup. I'll unplug these and see if things improve.
I haven't really installed too much since those wonderful 45 second boot-up days.
I upgraded the processor from a AMD XP 2400+ to a AMD XP 2700+. A slight increase in horsepower but not much. I also upgraded the power supply from a 300 watt to a 430 watt. The slow boot-up was occurring before I did these two upgrades though. The hardware that I used to upgrade this machine came from another machine I had that I upgraded.
I did recently hook my two machines together via cat5 into a hub, 3COM NIC cards, shared hard drives. A little head-to-head Combat Mission set-up. Again, the slow-boot-up was occurring before I networked the machines.
I'll check out the tool that you referred to and try all of these things. Hopefully I'll be able to get to it tonight.
One other thing I aught to mention, The machine still comes up to the Windows XP Desktop in 45-50 seconds and it appears as though it's ready to rock but if you click on something, anything, it just kinda hangs for the aforementioned 2 extra minutes and then the "Welcome to the Wonderful World of Windows XP" music graces my speakers. Then it executes everything that I've been clicking on in a fast, catch-up fashion.
I'll let you know how I make out.
Thanks... </font>
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This looks really good. I downloaded this and will be applying it this evening to take a look. I've always felt that one of you talented modders should take a crack at making the tree bases look more natural. Hi-Res mods baby! Yeah! Detail kills!
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Nothing autoloading on boot. I've pretty much stripped that stuff out so as not to take up unnecessary system resources. I'll check again to make sure.Originally posted by Schrullenhaft:Do you have anything autoloading on boot (application, new hardware driver, etc.) ? Do you have any USB devices plugged in ?
Between the time it used to boot up within 45 seconds and your current boot up speed, have you installed a lot of software programs ? Has new hardware been added (internal or external) ? Is there a CD in any of your CD/DVD drives (remove them if this is the case) ?
Is your computer hooked up with a network connection (broadband internet or home network) ? If it is, disconnect it on the next boot to see if this makes a difference.
It may also be a case of 'registry bloat' which can happen with the installation (and potential removal) of a lot of software. I'm not sure if the registry gets defragged or not with the built-in Microsoft defragger. Here's some registry related utilities that may help, but I can't vouch for any of them.
I do have a few USB devices plugged into it. Scanner and printer as well as the APC battery backup. I'll unplug these and see if things improve.
I haven't really installed too much since those wonderful 45 second boot-up days.
I upgraded the processor from a AMD XP 2400+ to a AMD XP 2700+. A slight increase in horsepower but not much. I also upgraded the power supply from a 300 watt to a 430 watt. The slow boot-up was occurring before I did these two upgrades though. The hardware that I used to upgrade this machine came from another machine I had that I upgraded.
I did recently hook my two machines together via cat5 into a hub, 3COM NIC cards, shared hard drives. A little head-to-head Combat Mission set-up. Again, the slow-boot-up was occurring before I networked the machines.
I'll check out the tool that you referred to and try all of these things. Hopefully I'll be able to get to it tonight.
One other thing I aught to mention, The machine still comes up to the Windows XP Desktop in 45-50 seconds and it appears as though it's ready to rock but if you click on something, anything, it just kinda hangs for the aforementioned 2 extra minutes and then the "Welcome to the Wonderful World of Windows XP" music graces my speakers. Then it executes everything that I've been clicking on in a fast, catch-up fashion.
I'll let you know how I make out.
Thanks...
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Posting to see if anyone has run into this problem.
My machine:
AMD AThlon XP 2700+ 2.17ghz
1.5GB RAM PC2100
GeForce Ti4600 128MB 4X AGP
Maxtor 60GB Hard Drive 7200RPM 2MB cache
Creative Labs Sound Blaster Gamer 5.1
Windows XP Pro with all the latest updates courtesy of Microsoft
APC Battery backup connected via USB
Running Norton Anti-Virus with Auto Protect turned Off
This machine used to boot-up in 45 seconds flat but now it takes 2 minutes 45 seconds to boot-up.
I'm at a loss...
I've emptied out the TEMP directory
I've looked for Spyware using Spyhunter
I've run Defrag and Chkdsk
I've checked for viruses/trojans using Norton and Stinger software
Still boots up slow. After it comes up it screams but it takes a long time to boot up. Didn't used to so I'm guessing something happened along the way.
Your suggestions are welcome.
Thanks in advance!
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</font>Originally posted by AstroCat:Check cmmods.
Jordan "AstroCat"
...I ended up modding them a little myself but I'm uploading the mods in the original form to cmmods.
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Bluefish:
It was the background sound from Medal of Honor. I lost all my CMBO mods when I switched to a better computer. It was a great sound mod. I wouldn't mind seeing it done for CMBB.
It was never posted anywhere for copyright reasons I believe.
Destroying armour with HE
in Combat Mission: Afrika Korps
Posted
This is a good post/observation. Looking at this from the Axis point of view, the German big cats, Tiger and Panther, have HE that is also high velocity. Does the high velocity of the HE round equate to a penetration or is it, as so many have already pointed out in this thread, outer structural damage?