Wanna help a pro-Intel convert to AMD ??

[Silver_VR6]

Hi folks,

my computer store lent me a 1ghz T-Bird for the weekend to try it out (aren't they great??). Even though I really like Intel's products (never had any problems with them whatsoever) I gave the t-bird a try and here's what I found;

1- I really enjoyed installing 56 different drivers
2- For an unexplained reason, my scores in Quake3 have dropped since I first installed the t-bird. I had 126 fps at 1024x768x16 (normal settings) and now I'me getting 106 fps... strange. I must say the 106 fps is after I installled and reinstalled all kinds of drivers. Do those scores make sense ??

Here's my current setup (before I installed the t-bird):
P-550e (oc'ed to 733); Asus P3B-F; Siemens PC-133 ram; Promise RAID card ata-100; 2x 40gigs Maxtors ATA100; CLabs Geforce2 GTS 32megs and windows me.

So I replaced my mobo and proc with an Asus A7V and t-bird 1ghz, the rest remains the same. So now my question (sorry I'm so long-winded). What is the frikin recipe to make it work at its best?? Please tell me which drivers I should install and in which sequence. So far I have installed:

-Via 4-in-1 drivers version 420 (off the asus a7v cd)
-Via 4-in-1 drivers version 424a (www.viatech.com)
-agp drivers 4.03 (www.viatech.com)
-windows me promise ultra ata 100 ide controller
-promise raid ata-100 drivers off the installation disquette(version 0130)
-creative labs 3db9xdrv_634

So what I need is the "recipe" or the step-by-step guide to install which drivers in which sequence.

It seems it was never as complicated with Intel's products; but I am willing to give it a shot since AMD's products seem to be worth it.

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks

François

ps: I cross-posted this over to ars technica also, I don't want to play favorites ahah!

 

[jinsonxu]

Sent you an e-mail. Might not help much.

 

[Diesel21]

Did you reinstall windows after the swapping of the two motherboards?

 

[Silver_VR6]

it was a fresh install of windows me

Thanks guys

Francois

 

[WishMaster]

P3's are faster than Athlon's in games though.....i think...im pretty sure...

 

[Abomination]

Keep thinkin, most games run faster on athlons because a lot of the old games that still kick ass (quake 2, GTA 2, carmageadon 2, quake 1, RCT etc, etc, etc...) don't support the pentium III and when the p3 isn't supported, it sux balls. Most of the games that are supported are really new (and there aren't that many good games that are new) are already being benchmarked and that's all we see. A good example of this is this weekend, my friends and I got a huge game together of GTA 2. Unfortunately, GTA's netcode is so bad that when one computer is slowing down, everyone gets lagged. One computer was a p3 600 with onboard video while the other computers were a Tbird 750 + Gf2 MX , Tbird 900 + Gf2 MX, Duron 600@900 TnT2u. So we found out when we played without the p3 600, the game ran amamzingly fast and we had no lag whatsoever. My friend got really pissed but we just got used to playing with 3 computers and rotating. If you're a gamer, the p3 is not the way to go.

 

[Smbu]

Abomination: the P3 was slower than the next cpu by 150mhz and he had an integrated video card, but I don't think the video card would matter much in GTA2.

If I were going to put together a new system I would definately go w/AMD. Their performance and price are both excellent. Unfortunately, I put my new system together earlier this summer, so I will just have to suffer w/my P3 700@1ghz.[img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-smile.gif[/img]

 

[Mem]

Silver_VR6 ,I have a ten week old system including,900mhz T-bird ,MSI K7T PRO,GEFORCE2 MX,256MB Crucial ram,SBlive, anyway when I installed the the OS(Win98 os1) it was a clean install,then I installed the Via 4 in 1 drivers 4.24 first,next Nvidia drivers(6.31) & then Soundcard drivers followed by DirectX,modem,mouse drivers were last,btw the most important thing is is to install the Via drivers first,I have had no problems period(apart from a faulty CPU which was replaced) & all my games run fine.

Note before this I had a Intel based system including a INTEL LX chipset board(Abit LM6) & my current system is the most stable board I`ve ever had,infact I`m still waiting for my first BSOD,or lockup & will definetly buy AMD in future if this is the kind of stability you can get with the right parts.

 

[cabojoe]

Perfectly stated Mem...Some people need to frame what you said about the order for installing the drivers...and hang it on their wall...great post!

 

[Abomination]

err, Maybe I didn't emphasize what I was trying to say. When Mike was in the game (the guy with the p3 600) it was nearly unplayable. I'm not exaggerating either, the lag was so bad we had to wait about 3 full seconds just to shoot (and our pings were only about 50 [which is good for GTA 2 4 player]) and after 15 minutes of trying to play, we finally gave up because we couldn't do a god damn thing. When I said it was amazingly fast, I meant that it was not only playable but it was amazingly fast. When the p3 was connected, it was absolutely horrid.
I would also go with AMD of course but what I'm trying to state is that there is more to a CPU then what you see in some cheap, 7 second timed demo from one video game (quake III).

 

[Silver_VR6]

OK guys,
stability problems completely went away when I downgraded to bios 1.003

However with this bios, I cannot disable ATA-100, so I cannot use my Raid ata-100 controller.

Does anyone know how to get a Promise Raid 100 controller work with the onboard ata-100??

Bios 1004 lets me do that but is unstable as hell!!

Anyone?? Bueller? Anyone??

Thanks guys

Francois