a bunch of questions

blazingoat

Member
Jan 23, 2003
77
0
0
I have a few pressing questions i'd like some answers to :)
Feel free to answer as many or few as you like. All imput is greatly appreciated.
Firstly, my current system specs:

P4 2.0ghz 400mhz fsb
512mb nanya 2100 (266) ddr ram (note: spd says 2300 ?)
Asus P4S533 mobo (lan/audio/ddr333/ata133)
1x Maxtor 80gig ata133 drive
1x Seagate Baracuda 80gig ata100 drive
ATI all-in-wonder 7500
1x (soon to be 2x) Proview 17" LCD monitor
Pionner A05 DVD-RW
LG 8X DVD-Rom
SoundBlaster Live 5.1
Adaptec firewire 1394 card
WinXp Pro w/ Sp1

I have recently upgrade to XP from 2000, and am loving it. I use my system mostly for video editing/graphics work, and only ocasional gaming. I don't really care about 3d quality. I want to do a few upgrades, but am not looking to speed a hell of a lot of money.
Here's my questions:

1) After upgrading to xp, at startup, i get a screen asking me if i'd like to boot either XP or 2000. I have deleted everything 2000ish that i can find, but this screen still comes up. Any way to get rid of it? (2000 won't boot, as it is gone :)

2)In xp, funky problem. -> every time i restart my toolbars in IE and taskbar seem to reset themselves.. ie. they move to default config. not where i had them last time.

3)I'm about to get myself a second LCD monitor, and would like to setup a dual-monitor system. My current vid card (All-in-wonder 7500) doesn't support 2 displays. I was thinking about getting and older PCI vid card to run the second monitor. Ati's hydravision and Xp should be able to set this up, right? I was thinking of a Radeon 32mb PCI card so that it would 'play nice' with my AIW 7500.. but someone told me that 2x radeon's don't work well, and that i should get an older Xpert or something of the like. Anyone have expereience w/ this? I thought about just getting a dual display capeable card (Radeon VE or Matrox maybe) but i really like my AIW features (watching tv, mostly). What's the best thing to do? Will an older Xpert PCI card give me decent 2d graphics for my second monitor?

4)WinXp installed it's own drivers my for my lan card, sound card and IDE interface. everything seems to work fine! is there any point in installing the drivers that came w/ my hardware?

5)In WinXp, using TweakXp, I have setup my primary paging file on my second 80gig drive, the one that doesn't have the OS. This is good right?

6)I have a 512 stick of Nanya 2100 ddr ram. Will adding more, say another 256 or 512 stick give me much of a perfomance increase? I do alot of multitasking, but looking at my ramidle taskbar thingie, i rarely ever get below 128 of free ram. Should i think about getting some pc2700 ram, as my mobo supports this. It would be running async though, cuz my fsb is only 100mhz, right? (on that note, isn't 266 ddr in a system w/ a 100mhz fsb running async? wouldn't it run at 200mhz? hence: 2x100 for the "Doube Data Rate".

7)I have 2 80 gig hard drives. One is ata100, and the other is ata133. Right now, my OS is on the ata133 drive, and i use the other drive for my video storage. I was thinking about setting up a RAID0 (Stripping) array for better performance. Is this easy to do? I assume the raid array needs fresh, formated drives, so i'd have to start from scratch, right? Also, is this setup reliable? (2x drives prolly means 2x the chance of failure).. and I assume if one drive dies, then the data on the other is useless. Should i think about setting one of these up.. or waiting for a high performance SATA 8mb cache drive? (I heard something about 10,000rpm sata drives). I don't think i'm ready for $ of SCSI, so what's my best bet right now? should i leave it the way it is because the RAID hassle isn't worth the speed gains, or what?


8)What should i upgrade first? my Ram or my hard drives? I think i'm gona hold of on CPU for a little bit. I'd like to get an 800mhz cpu w/ HT when they're available.. and a new mobo too.

9)I'm having problems w/ win xp and my HP scanjet 3400c scanner. I d/l latest drivers from hp, and installed em. Everything looks great, scanner is detected and is 'working fine' according to device manager, how ever, the scanning software says some thing to the effect of 'scanner can not be found'.. anyone have any suggestions?

10) This is a long shot but, i have a mini webcam called a "Qcam210" that i have lost the driver cd for. Can't find drivers anywhere on the net. any thing generic i could try installing to get this thing to work w/ xp?

Thanks for any replies. I know some of this doesn't belong in this forum, so just ignore it, if you like.
 

DeViL

Banned
Mar 3, 2003
40
0
0
Question 4:

It might be a good idea to see if the drivers that came with yr pc stuff are more updating than XP's installed ones.

Just insert the cd and do a driver up and windows will see if the cd has more up2 date drivers
 

Ophir

Golden Member
Mar 29, 2001
1,211
4
81
Originally posted by: DeViL
Question 4:

It might be a good idea to see if the drivers that came with yr pc stuff are more updating than XP's installed ones.

Just insert the cd and do a driver up and windows will see if the cd has more up2 date drivers

Unfortunately, updating ATI drivers is a pain in the ass. It is recommended to update to current video drivers, especially if you use the AIW for games or video capture. Go HERE for more info.

#1-5 - No idea

#6 - If you're using PC2100 then you're already running async. PC2100 = DDR266, PC2700 = DDR333, but IIRC running the memory async is not a problem for intel based systems. I'm not sure why, though. I'm sure someone more experienced could answer that. What I do know is that if you picked up a stick of PC2700 it would either run at full speed w/ the PC2100 overclocked or default to PC2100. You cannot run different memory sticks async.

#7 - In order to have a RAID 0 array, the drives have to be identical (same make/model), which in your case they are not, so it is out of the question.

#8 - Neither, save up for the next big upgrade. That rig looks to suit your needs well.

#9-10 - No idea

Hope it helps.
 

Wolfsraider

Diamond Member
Jan 27, 2002
8,305
0
76
Originally posted by: blazingoat
I have a few pressing questions i'd like some answers to :)
Feel free to answer as many or few as you like. All imput is greatly appreciated.
Firstly, my current system specs:

P4 2.0ghz 400mhz fsb
512mb nanya 2100 (266) ddr ram (note: spd says 2300 ?)
Asus P4S533 mobo (lan/audio/ddr333/ata133)
1x Maxtor 80gig ata133 drive
1x Seagate Baracuda 80gig ata100 drive
ATI all-in-wonder 7500
1x (soon to be 2x) Proview 17" LCD monitor
Pionner A05 DVD-RW
LG 8X DVD-Rom
SoundBlaster Live 5.1
Adaptec firewire 1394 card
WinXp Pro w/ Sp1

I have recently upgrade to XP from 2000, and am loving it. I use my system mostly for video editing/graphics work, and only ocasional gaming. I don't really care about 3d quality. I want to do a few upgrades, but am not looking to speed a hell of a lot of money.
Here's my questions:

1) After upgrading to xp, at startup, i get a screen asking me if i'd like to boot either XP or 2000. I have deleted everything 2000ish that i can find, but this screen still comes up. Any way to get rid of it? (2000 won't boot, as it is gone :)

2)In xp, funky problem. -> every time i restart my toolbars in IE and taskbar seem to reset themselves.. ie. they move to default config. not where i had them last time.

3)I'm about to get myself a second LCD monitor, and would like to setup a dual-monitor system. My current vid card (All-in-wonder 7500) doesn't support 2 displays. I was thinking about getting and older PCI vid card to run the second monitor. Ati's hydravision and Xp should be able to set this up, right? I was thinking of a Radeon 32mb PCI card so that it would 'play nice' with my AIW 7500.. but someone told me that 2x radeon's don't work well, and that i should get an older Xpert or something of the like. Anyone have expereience w/ this? I thought about just getting a dual display capeable card (Radeon VE or Matrox maybe) but i really like my AIW features (watching tv, mostly). What's the best thing to do? Will an older Xpert PCI card give me decent 2d graphics for my second monitor?

4)WinXp installed it's own drivers my for my lan card, sound card and IDE interface. everything seems to work fine! is there any point in installing the drivers that came w/ my hardware?

5)In WinXp, using TweakXp, I have setup my primary paging file on my second 80gig drive, the one that doesn't have the OS. This is good right?

6)I have a 512 stick of Nanya 2100 ddr ram. Will adding more, say another 256 or 512 stick give me much of a perfomance increase? I do alot of multitasking, but looking at my ramidle taskbar thingie, i rarely ever get below 128 of free ram. Should i think about getting some pc2700 ram, as my mobo supports this. It would be running async though, cuz my fsb is only 100mhz, right? (on that note, isn't 266 ddr in a system w/ a 100mhz fsb running async? wouldn't it run at 200mhz? hence: 2x100 for the "Doube Data Rate".

7)I have 2 80 gig hard drives. One is ata100, and the other is ata133. Right now, my OS is on the ata133 drive, and i use the other drive for my video storage. I was thinking about setting up a RAID0 (Stripping) array for better performance. Is this easy to do? I assume the raid array needs fresh, formated drives, so i'd have to start from scratch, right? Also, is this setup reliable? (2x drives prolly means 2x the chance of failure).. and I assume if one drive dies, then the data on the other is useless. Should i think about setting one of these up.. or waiting for a high performance SATA 8mb cache drive? (I heard something about 10,000rpm sata drives). I don't think i'm ready for $ of SCSI, so what's my best bet right now? should i leave it the way it is because the RAID hassle isn't worth the speed gains, or what?


8)What should i upgrade first? my Ram or my hard drives? I think i'm gona hold of on CPU for a little bit. I'd like to get an 800mhz cpu w/ HT when they're available.. and a new mobo too.

9)I'm having problems w/ win xp and my HP scanjet 3400c scanner. I d/l latest drivers from hp, and installed em. Everything looks great, scanner is detected and is 'working fine' according to device manager, how ever, the scanning software says some thing to the effect of 'scanner can not be found'.. anyone have any suggestions?

10) This is a long shot but, i have a mini webcam called a "Qcam210" that i have lost the driver cd for. Can't find drivers anywhere on the net. any thing generic i could try installing to get this thing to work w/ xp?

Thanks for any replies. I know some of this doesn't belong in this forum, so just ignore it, if you like.

1.) After upgrading to xp, at startup, i get a screen asking me if i'd like to boot either XP or 2000. I have deleted everything 2000ish that i can find, but this screen still comes up. Any way to get rid of it? (2000 won't boot, as it is gone


try this:
goto start /my computer /view system info /advanced /startup and recovery--settings /
you should see something like this:

[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=C:\
[operating systems]
C:\="Microsoft Windows"
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /fastdetect



what you have to do is remove the reference to win 2000 but you can just change the options for timeoout to 1 sec and you will hardly notice the choice anymore as it goes by quickly .i believe you can set it to "0" and never see it.
read this for more
the faq's cover this good and maybe in better wording lol

3.i also recommend two different video cards matrox millineum as an example windows will handle most functions for all else there is ultramon here


4)WinXp installed it's own drivers my for my lan card, sound card and IDE interface. everything seems to work fine! is there any point in installing the drivers that came w/ my hardware?

if it works fine np-ie if it ain't broke don't fix it lol but thisis a personal choice

5)In WinXp, using TweakXp, I have setup my primary paging file on my second 80gig drive, the one that doesn't have the OS. This is good right?
windows does a pretty good job of handling swap space,so this isn't necessary but again it is your choice

7)I have 2 80 gig hard drives. One is ata100, and the other is ata133. Right now, my OS is on the ata133 drive, and i use the other drive for my video storage. I was thinking about setting up a RAID0 (Stripping) array for better performance. Is this easy to do? I assume the raid array needs fresh, formated drives, so i'd have to start from scratch, right? Also, is this setup reliable? (2x drives prolly means 2x the chance of failure).. and I assume if one drive dies, then the data on the other is useless. Should i think about setting one of these up.. or waiting for a high performance SATA 8mb cache drive? (I heard something about 10,000rpm sata drives). I don't think i'm ready for $ of SCSI, so what's my best bet right now? should i leave it the way it is because the RAID hassle isn't worth the speed gains, or what?

7.raided ide is slightly better in speed but as you guessed it is a risk yes 2x the chance of failure and data is useless.whether or not its for you,multitasking moving big files all the time photo shop etc but then scsi handles this better and is less risky

8)What should i upgrade first? my Ram or my hard drives? I think i'm gona hold of on CPU for a little bit. I'd like to get an 800mhz cpu w/ HT when they're available.. and a new mobo too.

you state you're going to get a new mobo and cpu will the new ram be compatable with both?your hdd config looks reasonable and fairly new as does your ram ...wait untill you upgrade and see if you need different ram etc...unless you feel your system is slow.if i was going to upgrade anything it would be your video (yes i am a gamer/dvd watcher) but i love better graphics in or out of games lol.

does this help?

mike
 

human2k

Diamond Member
Jun 21, 2001
3,563
0
0
FOr all your winXP questions forward them to Microsofts tech support (your copy is legit isnt it?;)).