AMD or INTEL ?

[Johannes H Andersen]

AMD, I think it does better on games. Got a 2ghtz Xp 266mhz front
side bus. 512ram, 90 gig hard drive. Abit KX7-333 with raid. Abit
make some soild board. Suttle make some decent boards. Asus, I like
a P3 board i had from them. I build again istead of buy. Then i know
what componets im getting. Run Win ME. Not a big fan of xp yet

Fewer problems when building with Intels. Just see homebuild news groups.

 

[Yousuf Khan]

Fewer problems when building with Intels. Just see homebuild news
groups.

Looking at it, right now. Don't see anything unusual about it. Right now
more people seem to be talking about SP2 than any hardware.

Yousuf Khan

 

[JK]

Fewer problems when building with Intels. Just see homebuild news groups.

That is because only a small percentage of those building their own
computers are choosing to go with Intel.

 

[GSV Three Minds in a Can]

Bitstring <[email protected]>,
from the wonderful person Johannes H Andersen

Fewer problems when building with Intels. Just see homebuild news groups.

We had this discussion twice in the last month. 95% of home builders (at
least in the UK) have enough smarts to select AMD (based on
price/performance), so no, you won't find many Intel build issues on
homebuild newsgroups.

Just like you won't find a lot of Maserati issues on car maintenance
groups .. all those cars with problems are probably Ford, or GM or
something .. yes?

 

[Ed]

Fewer problems when building with Intels. Just see homebuild news groups.

Those News groups are only filled with people having problems, ever read
any of those posts, I mean there are people in there that never even
built a PC or don't have a clue what their doing!

What's so different about building with AMD or Intel anyway, you install
the OS, chipset, video, lan, audio drivers, I never had a problem, but
then again I guess know what the hell I am doing! ;p

Ed

 

[GSV Three Minds in a Can]

Looking at it, right now. Don't see anything unusual about it. Right now
more people seem to be talking about SP2 than any hardware.

What are they saying in the US homebuilt groups? The UK opinion seems to
be that mostly it works (but doesn't add much for people who already
were wearing full protection. 8>.) but a few people have had horrendous
problems (and had to back it out, which strips your machine =way= back)
or lost particular devices, or whatever.

I'm sitting here with an SP2 CD that MS finally sent me (took about 2
weeks) running backups to tape, prior to tossing a coin to see whether
to try it on one PC or not.
8>.

 

[Johannes H Andersen]

Those News groups are only filled with people having problems, ever read
any of those posts, I mean there are people in there that never even
built a PC or don't have a clue what their doing!

What's so different about building with AMD or Intel anyway, you install
the OS, chipset, video, lan, audio drivers, I never had a problem, but
then again I guess know what the hell I am doing! ;p

Yes, personally I think it's very simple; you just follow the manufacturer's
instructions and it usually works! Why people want to tinker with voltages
and bus speeds is beyond me.

 

[GSV Three Minds in a Can]

Bitstring <[email protected]>,
from the wonderful person Johannes H Andersen

Yes, personally I think it's very simple; you just follow the manufacturer's
instructions and it usually works! Why people want to tinker with voltages
and bus speeds is beyond me.

For the same reason they climb Everest .. because they can (or in some
cases, 'think they can')

 

[Johannes H Andersen]

Bitstring <[email protected]>,
from the wonderful person Johannes H Andersen


For the same reason they climb Everest .. because they can (or in some
cases, 'think they can')

And they think they know better than the manufacturers who have spent
$billions on research. Obviously, all they do is narrowing the safety
margin for system stability. Not as difficult or challenging as climbing
Everest. I wished I had gone the other way and build with registered and
ECC memory. Developing and understanding software structures is far more
interesting and challenging.

 

[Yousuf Khan]

What are they saying in the US homebuilt groups? The UK opinion seems
to be that mostly it works (but doesn't add much for people who
already were wearing full protection. 8>.) but a few people have had
horrendous problems (and had to back it out, which strips your
machine =way= back) or lost particular devices, or whatever.

I don't know, I didn't bother reading any of them, just looked at the
subject lines for a quick glance over to make my point in this group.

I'm sitting here with an SP2 CD that MS finally sent me (took about 2
weeks) running backups to tape, prior to tossing a coin to see whether
to try it on one PC or not.
8>.

I wouldn't worry so much about it. I installed it on three computers
already, with no problems. In fact, one of those computers was a buddy's
computer who ALWAYS has problems after any sort of change is made to his
system. It's like he attracts lightening to himself. I did follow some
precautions prior to installation:

http://forums.g4techtv.com/messageview.cfm?catid=59&threadid=219022

But I found, I didn't even need to follow those precautions prior to
installing it. For me, I usually expect to be among the "exceptional cases",
which have problems in some form or another, but this time nothing.

Yeah, the service pack itself didn't really add too much to my security,
more than what I was already following. I did replace the ZoneAlarm and
Sygate (depending on computer) with the built-in Windows Firewall now. And
their are a few upgrades to Outlook Express that simply make it much more
secure now (for example, it won't automatically display graphics in email
messages, since a lot of it may be used by spammers to track whether your
email address actually exists or not).

Yousuf Khan

 

[Johannes H Andersen]

[...]

I wouldn't worry so much about it. I installed it on three computers
already, with no problems. In fact, one of those computers was a buddy's
computer who ALWAYS has problems after any sort of change is made to his
system. It's like he attracts lightening to himself. I did follow some
precautions prior to installation:

http://forums.g4techtv.com/messageview.cfm?catid=59&threadid=219022

But I found, I didn't even need to follow those precautions prior to
installing it. For me, I usually expect to be among the "exceptional cases",
which have problems in some form or another, but this time nothing.

[...]

Also installed SP2 with no problems. But it now takes a lot longer to boot.
My P4 2.8 GHz is slower to boot than my PIII 450 MHz laptop. What is it
doing all that time? Discs from computer mags no longer display
automatically; I have to click on a coloured bar to indicate that it's OK
to run the script.

 

[Yousuf Khan]

Also installed SP2 with no problems. But it now takes a lot longer to
boot. My P4 2.8 GHz is slower to boot than my PIII 450 MHz laptop.
What is it doing all that time? Discs from computer mags no longer
display automatically; I have to click on a coloured bar to indicate
that it's OK to run the script.

Have you tried to clear the XP prefetch cache? Just type "prefetch" at the
run prompt, and an Explorer window will popup, just delete all of the files
in there, and reboot. The first reboot should be slower, and then
subsequently every following reboot should be faster.

Other than that, if that doesn't work, then you may have deeper problems.

Yousuf Khan

 

[Johannes H Andersen]

Have you tried to clear the XP prefetch cache? Just type "prefetch" at the
run prompt, and an Explorer window will popup, just delete all of the files
in there, and reboot. The first reboot should be slower, and then
subsequently every following reboot should be faster.

Other than that, if that doesn't work, then you may have deeper problems.

Yousuf Khan

Thanks for tip. It might boot slightly faster now, but I'm not yet sure.

 

[keith]

And they think they know better than the manufacturers who have spent
$billions on research. Obviously, all they do is narrowing the safety
margin for system stability.

Some want something for nothing. Some like to tinker. That said, often
manufacturers will leave performance on the table, depending on speed bins
vs. demand. OTOH, I'm in your camp. I've never overclocked my home
system. I've done it for work in a "what-if" sort of mode, where
stability nor data is of any importance.

Not as difficult or challenging as climbing
Everest. I wished I had gone the other way and build with registered and
ECC memory.

Registered isn't a big deal (though I have it on this system). ECC I
wouldn't be without. It's simply too cheap (11% adder) to go any other
way.

Developing and understanding software structures is far more
interesting and challenging.

Bah! Hardware is fun! Software sux! ;-)

 

[Yousuf Khan]

Thanks for tip. It might boot slightly faster now, but I'm not yet
sure.

The prefetch cache is why XP boots faster on the same machine than it did on
Win 2000 or earlier. It preloads device drivers and services into memory,
from a common location, before initializing them. However, after any sort of
major upgrade of the OS, some of the old drivers may no longer be needed,
but they'll still be brought into memory if they remain in the prefetch. So
deleting the stuff in the cache would mean that they'd be recreated from
scratch and only those things that are really needed now will be brought in.

The other thing to check for is to make sure that Windows is truly putting
the hard disk into UDMA modes, rather than PIO modes. I found out the day on
my Win2K desktop that if there is more than six consecutive failures of the
disk during bootup, the IDE device driver will record it and then put the
drives into PIO mode, even if you've got the settings set to use UDMA. The
only way to fix this is to uninstall the IDE device drivers (the main one,
as well as the ones for the primary and secondary channels), and then reboot
and have it redetect the device.

Yousuf Khan

 

[Johannes H Andersen]

The prefetch cache is why XP boots faster on the same machine than it did on
Win 2000 or earlier. It preloads device drivers and services into memory,
from a common location, before initializing them. However, after any sort of
major upgrade of the OS, some of the old drivers may no longer be needed,
but they'll still be brought into memory if they remain in the prefetch. So
deleting the stuff in the cache would mean that they'd be recreated from
scratch and only those things that are really needed now will be brought in.

The other thing to check for is to make sure that Windows is truly putting
the hard disk into UDMA modes, rather than PIO modes. I found out the day on
my Win2K desktop that if there is more than six consecutive failures of the
disk during bootup, the IDE device driver will record it and then put the
drives into PIO mode, even if you've got the settings set to use UDMA. The
only way to fix this is to uninstall the IDE device drivers (the main one,
as well as the ones for the primary and secondary channels), and then reboot
and have it redetect the device.

Yousuf Khan

Oops, like like you spotted something there. I use a little KVM box, but
there is a small problem with the mouse, it doesn't work on first boot
attempt; some capacitor or other need charging from the keyboard for it
to work, hence the mouse always works on second boot attempt. Hence
booting my PC is ON-OFF-ON. This problem only occurs if I don't use the
power unit for the KVM, which I usually don't because it's only relevant
at boot time. However, booting twice isn't good in the long run, so I'm
making a small 9V battery box for priming the KVM just at boot time.

On the other hand...the problem didn't exists before SP2.

 

[Tony Hill]

What are they saying in the US homebuilt groups? The UK opinion seems to
be that mostly it works (but doesn't add much for people who already
were wearing full protection. 8>.) but a few people have had horrendous
problems (and had to back it out, which strips your machine =way= back)
or lost particular devices, or whatever.

I've had a really wacky problem since installing SP2 in that my second
account with Admin privileges can not log off or shut down. Normally
I run everything in an account without admin privileges and everything
works fine there, and sometimes I can log off/shutdown on my admin
account, while other times I have to actually reboot the computer to
get out of that account. Really a pain in the butt. Searched
hundreds of knowledge base articles, news groups, web sites, etc. and
found dozens of ideas, but none of them have had any effect.

I'm sitting here with an SP2 CD that MS finally sent me (took about 2
weeks) running backups to tape, prior to tossing a coin to see whether
to try it on one PC or not.

I think that SP2 is a great idea, though it's still needs a bit of
polish to get things working right. I think they really need an
'SP2a' or some such thing.

 

[chrisv]

For the same reason they climb Everest .. because they can (or in some
cases, 'think they can')

I think hot-rodding your car is a better analogy...