Nikki Mond Posted February 17, 2007 Share Posted February 17, 2007 If you want a cheap solution to upgrade your graphics, Nvidia is releasing 512mb AGP boards of its older 6800 chip set. The price aint bad either. If you plan on hanging onto your AGP mobo then one should snatch these up before they disappear in lieu of the PCI express format. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
afreu Posted February 19, 2007 Share Posted February 19, 2007 Hi, I'm new to the forum and just wondering if I'll even be able to play this game on my system. My specs: Pentium-M 745 1.8Ghz 1024MB RAM Mobility Radeon 9700 256MB I now it's not much for today's standards. I can barely run Armed Assault with more than 15 fps. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ColumbusOHGamer Posted February 21, 2007 Share Posted February 21, 2007 No one has mentioned that upgrading your equipment is going to dramticaly increase the amount of heat produced by those new components. I would recommend the following: 80mm Thermaltake Fan 120mm Silverstone Fan Vantec copper memory heat sinks Zalman CPU copper heat sink w/fan I have no first hand experience, but I've read about the Core2Duo CPUs getting very hot. Personally, I went with a Presler 3.4 CPU on a Asus P5B Delux Mobo. the CPU has 2x2MB L2 cache and is only $179. But that's just my opinion. Anyway, my point was... don't forget to keep all that expensive equipment cool with some good fans. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
iplaygames2 Posted February 21, 2007 Author Share Posted February 21, 2007 True, columbus, E6400s get really hot if overclocked. I've got a slot fan in my system currently, and will transfer it over to the new box if temps get high. Not planning on doing any OC at this point, so should be pretty stable. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Redwolf Posted February 21, 2007 Share Posted February 21, 2007 Originally posted by ColumbusOHGamer: Zalman CPU copper heat sink w/fan I have a couple of those but they are NOT suitable for overclocked high-end CPUs. The maximum cooling power at highest fan settings of these is rather disappointing. Also, they block the RAM slots at least, and possibly other things and might not fit. These models are very good and quiet coolers for non-overclocked PCs, in particular those with energy saving CPUs, at low fan settings. Another advantage is low center of balance so that the forces on the board in a vertical mount (tower case) are not that high. But if you tune up the fan they only get louder, not cooler. Overclocked high-end CPUs should get one of the current high-end heatsinks: - Thermalright Ultra-120 - Sunbeam Tuniq tower - Scythe Infinity The Thermaltake Big Typhoon is an older model which is also good but not as good as these. The Big Typhoon is, however, not as intrusive with regards to case space, and it cools RAM and power management on the board to a given extend, which the above three don't do, so it's still a valid option. 10 times better than the Zalman. Note that not all of the above come with a fan and not all can be mounted on AMD's AM2 socket. Most also have lousy mounting hardware. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kouei Posted February 21, 2007 Share Posted February 21, 2007 The Radeon X1950 Pro and it's PSU requirements. I read that you need a PSU with a single 12V line that can deliver 30A continous or dual 12V lines, 22A continous each. I also read about people with X1950 Pro cards and 430W PSUs not even close to meeting those requirements who have no problems whatsoever. Any thoughts? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
iplaygames2 Posted February 21, 2007 Author Share Posted February 21, 2007 OK guys I've put together the new system and am having a couple issues. I went with the gigabyte ga-965p-s3 board, so please keep that in mind. 1) My CD-RW drive doesn't show up anymore in windows XP. It initially DID show up, and I began installing drivers with it, then after a reboot it just isn't there. At all. Not in device manager, not in 'my computer' screen..nada. However, I switched my DVD over to slave and it shows up fine. 2) Can't figure out how to have a HD, CD-RW, and DVD all on one ribbon. There's only 1 IDE port that I see...and the FDD for the Zip drive, right? Also, my zip drive doesn't show up...hmmmmmm... any ideas? 3) I get a pop up on every fresh boot up that "gigabyte VGA bios not found!". Not sure why it would look for/need a VGA anything, as it's a PCI-E card. 4) How do I reactivate windows xp without the CoA? Can't find that damn thing anywhere. Thanks for all your help, look forward to hearing how I goofed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Redwolf Posted February 21, 2007 Share Posted February 21, 2007 Originally posted by Kouei: The Radeon X1950 Pro and it's PSU requirements. I read that you need a PSU with a single 12V line that can deliver 30A continous or dual 12V lines, 22A continous each. I also read about people with X1950 Pro cards and 430W PSUs not even close to meeting those requirements who have no problems whatsoever. Any thoughts? Again, the wattage claims on a PSU, and the claims about Ampere on the individual rails are absolutely worthless without stating brand and product, or actual manufacturer. The reason why some people can run with 430W PSUs and others with the same hardware cannot is that two 430W PSUs from different vendors can have as much as 1:2 different amount of actually useful, permanent power output. Not to mention the bad one can easily blow up and destroy every single component in your PC - which via the harddrive(s) includes your data. That happens quite often in practice, in particular with that "silent" Antec junk. [ February 21, 2007, 07:15 PM: Message edited by: Redwolf ] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kklownboy Posted February 22, 2007 Share Posted February 22, 2007 Originally posted by Kouei: The Radeon X1950 Pro and it's PSU requirements. I read that you need a PSU with a single 12V line that can deliver 30A continous or dual 12V lines, 22A continous each. I also read about people with X1950 Pro cards and 430W PSUs not even close to meeting those requirements who have no problems whatsoever. Any thoughts? What you read is wrong. It can be right if you take the whole Systems needs. But a 1950"pro" does not need 30amps. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mazex Posted February 22, 2007 Share Posted February 22, 2007 [ February 22, 2007, 05:06 AM: Message edited by: mazex ] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mazex Posted February 22, 2007 Share Posted February 22, 2007 [ February 22, 2007, 05:06 AM: Message edited by: mazex ] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mazex Posted February 22, 2007 Share Posted February 22, 2007 Originally posted by mazex: </font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by mazex: I would agree for most Zalman coolers, but the latest ones are actually OK. I have a Zalman CNPS 9700 Copper on my E6700 clocked at 3.0Ghz (as my Striker Extreme MB did not allow the Tunic Tower which would have been my choice otherwise - there is a quite high passive cooling system on the MB). The CNPS 9700 gives me 39C on idle and 54-55C running two instances of Prime95 on torture test... I find that rather OK (Antec P180B chassis helps). EDIT: That is when running the Zalman fan at 1900rpm where it is rather silent. P180B tricool fans are set at medium and I have an 8800GTX card generating some heat... Regards /Mazex Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
iplaygames2 Posted February 22, 2007 Author Share Posted February 22, 2007 Also, when I reboot my system, I get windows XP doing a 'found new PCI device' in my sistem. The only cards installed in my box are the GPU and sound card...both of which already show up in the device manager. When I try to 'install automatically', it doesn't find any drivers and fails to install this mystery device. Any idea how to find out what it's finding? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mazex Posted February 22, 2007 Share Posted February 22, 2007 Originally posted by iplaygames2: Also, when I reboot my system, I get windows XP doing a 'found new PCI device' in my sistem. The only cards installed in my box are the GPU and sound card...both of which already show up in the device manager. When I try to 'install automatically', it doesn't find any drivers and fails to install this mystery device. Any idea how to find out what it's finding? A number of devices on the motherboard are actually connected via the PCI bus on the Southbridge, ie built in network adapers, sound cards etc... Install all the drivers for built-in devices on your mother board and it will probably go away! Good luck /Mazex Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mazex Posted February 22, 2007 Share Posted February 22, 2007 Originally posted by iplaygames2: OK guys I've put together the new system and am having a couple issues. I went with the gigabyte ga-965p-s3 board, so please keep that in mind. 1) My CD-RW drive doesn't show up anymore in windows XP. It initially DID show up, and I began installing drivers with it, then after a reboot it just isn't there. At all. Not in device manager, not in 'my computer' screen..nada. However, I switched my DVD over to slave and it shows up fine. 2) Can't figure out how to have a HD, CD-RW, and DVD all on one ribbon. There's only 1 IDE port that I see...and the FDD for the Zip drive, right? Also, my zip drive doesn't show up...hmmmmmm... any ideas? 3) I get a pop up on every fresh boot up that "gigabyte VGA bios not found!". Not sure why it would look for/need a VGA anything, as it's a PCI-E card. 4) How do I reactivate windows xp without the CoA? Can't find that damn thing anywhere. Thanks for all your help, look forward to hearing how I goofed. 1) Check master slave settings for both drives and decide which one you want as the master... 2) AFAIK you can only have two drives on one IDE bus. Most modern devices are SATA so the IDE bus is dying... There are even MB:s without any IDE bus nowadays... Buy a SATA HD and use the IDE for your optical drives, or buy a cheap DVD with SATA if the HD is new and expensive... 3) Try changing "Primary display adapter" (or something like that) in the BIOS. Set it to PCI-E and disable the built in VGA card if there is one. 4) Search harder /Mazex Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Redwolf Posted February 22, 2007 Share Posted February 22, 2007 Originally posted by iplaygames2: Also, when I reboot my system, I get windows XP doing a 'found new PCI device' in my sistem. The only cards installed in my box are the GPU and sound card...both of which already show up in the device manager. When I try to 'install automatically', it doesn't find any drivers and fails to install this mystery device. Any idea how to find out what it's finding? Disable it in device manager to suppress the warning if you don't actually miss the device (just klicking "leave me alone" in the boot dialog box doesn't do it). The PCI device ID allows you to google and find what it is. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KG_AGCent Posted February 23, 2007 Share Posted February 23, 2007 Originally posted by ColumbusOHGamer: No one has mentioned that upgrading your equipment is going to dramticaly increase the amount of heat produced by those new components. I would recommend the following: 80mm Thermaltake Fan 120mm Silverstone Fan Vantec copper memory heat sinks Zalman CPU copper heat sink w/fan I have no first hand experience, but I've read about the Core2Duo CPUs getting very hot. Personally, I went with a Presler 3.4 CPU on a Asus P5B Delux Mobo. the CPU has 2x2MB L2 cache and is only $179. But that's just my opinion. Anyway, my point was... don't forget to keep all that expensive equipment cool with some good fans. I have found the only way to properly cool components pumping the kind of wattage a c2d and the x1950xtx's is with liquid cooling. I have an E6700 Conroe on an P5W DH Deluxe, 2gig PC6400, two x1950xtx in Crossfire cfg and 2 Western Digital Raptor 10,000rpm drives in RAID 0. When I ran fans alone the noise was unbearable. I pulled it all apart and installed a custom liquid cooler hitting the CPU, both vid cards, the RAM and the Raptors and all I hear are the HDs and the pump. The cpu runs at 27c at rest and 35c under load and the vid cards run 35c/41c. I have the case sitting on my computer table right in front of me, that didn't help matters much either. Your point is very well taken; cooling is everything. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
iplaygames2 Posted February 23, 2007 Author Share Posted February 23, 2007 The junk I get from device manager about this PCI device is: PCI\\VEN_8086&DEV_284B&SUBSYS_A0021458&REV_02 Anyone know what it is? Google was no help. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mazex Posted February 23, 2007 Share Posted February 23, 2007 Originally posted by iplaygames2: The junk I get from device manager about this PCI device is: PCI\\VEN_8086&DEV_284B&SUBSYS_A0021458&REV_02 Anyone know what it is? Google was no help. Well, I found this on Google... Name: Microsoft UAA Bus Driver for High Definition Audio Device ID: PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_284B&SUBSYS_A0021458&REV_02\3&13C0B0C5&0&D8 Driver: C:\WINDOWS\system32\DRIVERS\hdaudbus.sys, 5.10.0001.5013 (English), 1/7/2005 17:07:18, 138752 bytes This mean that you have probably not installed the drivers found on this page för your Gigabyte motherboard: http://www.gigabyte.com.tw/Support/Motherboard/Driver_Model.aspx?ClassValue=Motherboard&ProductID=2321&ProductName=GA-965P-S3 Download all these driver and install them - especially the audio drivers. I suppose you problem should disappear that way... Good luck! /Mazex Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Redwolf Posted February 23, 2007 Share Posted February 23, 2007 I dunno about water cooling. Water cooling does not improve your overclock as such. You reach the same overclock unless you usedchilled water or real cooling like Phase Change. Watercooling makes you able to hold that given overclock under more cicumstances, in particular with the case closed and/or in a warm room. But it isn't overclocking magic. I use a Swiftech kit with Storm block on my Core2Duo and it works well enough for 24/7. But right now I made the mistake to not shield it from sun and have algae growth in it after just one week. Great. Earlier I didn't realize some stupid molex connector was not slicing 12V through and ran with the pump off, which wasn't great for stability. You replace a single point of failure (fan) with a whole bunch of things you can screw up. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KG_AGCent Posted February 23, 2007 Share Posted February 23, 2007 Luckily I don't rely on it for overclocking. I use it for QUIET and efficient cooling. Overclocking is scary, foreign mumbo-jumbo... kinda like French but without the limp wrist. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MikeyD Posted February 28, 2007 Share Posted February 28, 2007 Ooooh, I'm an old mac guy and get lost in all this PC alphabet soup of add-on parts & pieces. Has there been any mention on the board yet about ToW and Intel macs that are booting Windows? I'm certain it won't be mac OS compatible. I'm VERY close to the purchase of a [ EDIT - now looking a a 2.33 Ghz imac] and it would be nice to know that ToW might be runnable on the thing with a little jiggering. [ February 28, 2007, 02:01 PM: Message edited by: MikeyD ] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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