AS A FORMER GIGABYTE + PENT 200 MMX
EPOX MVP3C + AMD K6-2-450,
GIGABYTE GA5AA + AMD K6-2-500
AND NOW A ASUS CUV4X + CELERON 566 FC-PGA OWNER
I WILL TRY AND PASS ON AS MUCH PC INFO STUFF AS I CAN
PLEASE GO TO YOURS NEWS SERVER AND SEE IF THERE IS A NEWS SITE ON YOUR
MOTHER BOARD OR CPU VIDEO CARD etc. BEFORE E-MAILING ME.
GA5-AA FROM GIGABYTE.
THIS MOTHER BOARD HAS PROBLEMS WITH SOME AGP VIDEO CARDS ESP: THE TNT CARDS. THE CURE: DOWNLOAD THE LATEST MB DRIVERS AND AGP DRIVERS FROM GIGABYTE. FOR TNT OWNERS, INSTALL THESE TNT DRIVERS FOR YOUR TNT CARD:
win9xAGP208s.
I DON'T KNOW IF ANYONE STILL HAS THESE DRIVERS. I DO KNOW THAT NVIDIA IS PUSHING ITS DETONATOR DRIVERS AND IT MIGHT BE WORTH WHILE GIVING THEM A GO FIRST. IF THE DETONATOR DRIVERS DIDN'T DO THE JOB FOR YOU THEN TRY DOWNLOADING THE win9xAGP208s DRIVERS HERE. NEXT DOWNLOAD THE 386WIN9xagp DRIVERS. THESE DRIVERS ALSO CAN WORK FOR OTHER SYSTEMS HAVING TROUBLE RUNNING A TNT CARD .
INSTALL THE DRIVERS IN THE SAME ORDER THAT I HAVE SET THEM OUT IN. AND GOOD LUCK.
THE GA5AA I FOUND TO BE BIOS SENSITIVE , NOT SO MUCH IN THE BIOS SETTINGS BUT MORE IN WHICH BIOS YOU CHOSE TO RUN , eg. F1, F2 , F3, F6, PLUS THE PREE F SERIES BIOS. SO CHOSE YOUR BIOS CAREFULLY , THE BIOS MY SYSTEM LIKED ? WHY THE F2. IT WENT ABSOLUTELY BERSERK WITH F3 AND F6 WAS ONLY SLIGHTLY BETTER. SO IF YOU ARE HAVING PROBLEMS THAT YOU JUST CANT EXPLAIN AWAY , TRY ANOTHER BIOS
CUV4X updated 5 March 2001
Im running [email protected] rock stable. My cooler is the Global Win FOP32 . I have set the AGP slot to 1x as this is the most stable, and if anything , Im getting better frame rates for it in Quake. So setting the AGP slot to 1x has not slowed the graphics or my system down . Im currently using the ASMART GeForce 2 mx graphics card, on the cuv4x and detonator 3 drivers, with direct X8. The only real problem with this MB is its temperature readings for the cpu, which for some reason keep showing as being below room temp sometimes. This was supposedly fixed with the 1007 bios , but it would seem that this is not the case. Other than this , the CUV4X MB has been a joy to use.
UPDATED 22.12.2000
IF YOU ARE INTO OVERCLOCKING, YOU WILL WANT TO GO WITH THE 1007 BIOS FOR THIS MB, IT IS MORE STABLE THAN 1006... OK
VOODOO3 2000pci
THIS IS THE CARD I TURNED TO WHEN THE TNT REFUSED TO RUN STABLE IN THE GA5AA 2 YEARS AGO. I CAN SPEAK NO ILL OF THE VOODOO3 2000. IT SERVED ME WELL. JUST DOWNLOAD THE LATEST DRIVERS FROM http://www.3dfx.com/ AND AWAY YOU GO. 3DFX HAVE SOME OTHER NICE GOODIES THERE LIKE SOFTWARE THAT WILL ALLOW YOU TO OVER CLOCK YOUR VOODOO CARDS.
TNT
MY TNT CARD IS THE 16MEG SPEED CHASER. UNTIL I FOUND THE DRIVERS THAT WOULD ALLOW THE CARD TO RUN STABLE ON MY COMPUTER, I HAD NO IDEA AS TO HOW GOOD OR BAD IT WAS. WELL ITS EVERY BIT AS GOOD AS THE VOODOO3 2000 I HAD . AND ON THE GA5 SYSTEM I HAD IT WAS JUST A LITTLE BIT FASTER. ABOUT 5 FRAMES PER SECOND IN UNREAL TOURNAMENT. AND AT ABOUT HALF THE COST OF A VOODOO3 2000. I WOULD SAY ITS NOT TO BAD. FOR MORE INFO ON TNT CARDS AND ON SETTING THEM UP GO TO
http://www.tweak3d.net/tweak/rivatnt/ ..............OR
http://www.gamecenter.com/Hardware/Doit/Rivatnt/
HONESTLY THOUGH I DON'T THINK IT DOES MY NEW SYSTEM JUSTICE, AND A NEW 32 MEG TNT JUST MIGHT BE THE ORDER OF THE DAY. THOUGH IM WAITING FOR A 64 MEG TNT. JUST HOPE THAT I DON'T HAVE TO WAIT TO LONG. AT THE MOMENT I AM RUNNING THE ABOVE DRIVERS + THE DETONATOR 3 DRIVERS (INSTALLED LAST). AND I AM USING DIRECT X 8.
DIRECT X 8
YES , ITS FINALLY HERE , AFTER ONE LONG YEAR OF HEARING ABOUT DIRECT X 8. YOU CAN DOWNLOAD IT FROM MICROSOFT. IS IT FASTER , MORE STABLE , ARE THE GRAPHICS BETTER.?? MAYBE, A LITTLE FASTER, STABLE?? WILL HAVE TO WAIT AND SEE ON THAT ONE. BETTER GRAPHICS, ????????/ MIGHT JUST NEED A BETTER CARD THAT CAN UTILIZE DX 8 . I HAVE ONLY BEEN RUNNING DX 8 FOR A FEW DAYS NOW , BUT IT LOOKS GOOD. MICROSOFT JUST MIGHT HAVE MADE AN IMPROVEMENT TO THE WIN 95 ENG YET. (WIN 95, 98, ME, ARE BASED ON THE SAME SOFTWARE)
UPDATED 22.12.2000
STILL NO PROBLEMS THAT I CAN DIRECTLY BLAME ON DIRECT X 8 WILL RELOAD WIN98SE IN THE NEW YEAR... AND I WILL RUN DX 7 FIRST... JUST TO MANY NEW THINGS IN MY COMPUTER ...
GRAPHICS CARDS
OK . ITS IMPORTANT THAT YOU CHECK THE INSTALL INSTRUCTIONS CAREFULLY FOR YOUR CARD. A LOT OF CARDS ARE BIOS SENSITIVE. EG . YOUR SYSTEM WONT BOOT UP PROPERLY, RUN STABLE, OR WORK AT ALL PERHAPS. THE THINGS TO WATCH FOR ARE , VIDEO MEMORY CACHE MODE, PRIMARY VGA SET TO , WHAT EVER YOUR CARD IS , PCI OR AGP, VERY IMPORTANT IF YOU HAVE BUILT IN GRAPHICS. TO DISABLE THE ONBOARD GRAPHICS IN THE BIOS. THE OTHER THING TO WATCH FOR IS VIDEO ROM BIOS SHADOW. SO IF YOUR CARD IS NOT RUNNING RIGHT THESE ARE THE THINGS TO CHECK AND CHANGE IN YOUR BIOS. THE OTHER THING IS HARDWARE DRIVERS, YOU MIGHT HAVE TO PLAY AROUND WITH DRIVERS UNTIL YOU FIND A COMBO THAT WORKS. A LOT OF FUN I CAN TELL YOU = NOT.
ALSO TRY http://www.tweak3d.net/ .....A GOOD REF SOURCE
4 amp Peltier (48watt) 7 March 2001
Well. I've just conducted my second air cooled test with the 4amp peltier and its not good. I made a new clip for the fop38 air cooler and put the peltier under it. Sure it brought the temp down at idle, MBM 5.05 says all the way down to -10 deg C, and its a 30deg c day. Playing Quake , the temp hit 50deg C. Now thats just not good at all. And that was with the fop38.I would say that , the water cooler boys are right, you need water cooling to get the most from a peltier. So Im personally giving up on peltiers for now. So if you live in Melbourne Australia, and want a peltier, e-mail me at [email protected] and its yours for $25AUST .And just in case you dream of peltier cooling read the Externally Ducted Fop32 story.
QUAKE TESTS
There may still be some out there whom know not how to run a quake frame rate test. So just in case , here is how you do it, and it maters not if you have the full retail version or the demo. First start the program.
When the first screen appears hit the shift and ~ key, this will bring down the menu.
type in, disconnect and hit enter
type in , timedemo 1 and hit enter
type in , demo demo001 and hit enter.
If you wish you may run demo 2 in which case,
type in , demo demo002
That's it , now you can run all the quake frame rate tests you want.
Security And Utilities.
SECURITY
From Lavasoft we have Ad-Aware 4.5 , this progy is used to detect spyware that has found its way onto your system. I have been using this program for a week now and give it a thumbs up and make it an OC+ must have program. Cos its free, very useful, and very easy to use.
Another progy (fire-wall) that would rate as must have is Zone Alarm, again easy to use and free. keep in mind that there are rumors going around that Zone Alarm spies on you. So ???? on Zone Alarm for now.
Another fire wall is Tiny Personal FW, again its free, rather easy to use and has advanced features for you to play with should you chose to do so. I have been using this progy for a week now and give it the thumbs up.
I found some more fire walls that are suposed to be free. 1 From Electrocities we have the nukenabber, and 2 From Sygate we have the free for personal use syshield. I have not used either one yet so the only free fire wall that I can recomend at this time is the Tiny Personal FW. A lot of webs are pushing the Zone Alarm, but ???, at this time I will stick with TP FW.
A good all round bit of software is PGP (pretty good privacy). you can make self decrypting archives, encrypt files, make secure connections between computers and networks. And it comes with a very good disk wipe function. I have been using PGP for years now and its a must have.
To test that Fire Wall go to Leak Test.
Anonymizer? free trial.
Utilities
For you GeForce users , Guru 3D has a tweak utility, since I haven't tried it, its user beware.
3D Mark 2000, you have seen it quoted , used in tests , Now you can have it.
Mother Board Monitor 5. again you can have it. Just make sure that your MB is supported.
Sisoft Sandra 2001. another testing progy, go get it.
Advanced Zip Password Recovery. AZPR. Been using it for years. A must have.
Hardcopy. How can you live without this progy. A must have.
OVER CLOCKING GUIDE updated
COOLERS updated