Hey all, I haven't posted for a while. Senior year in high school, ya know. I've been building a nice computer to replace my pentium 1. Pentium 1's are not cool!! Anyway, I have a motherboard that supports a 400mhz FSB Athlon and the RAM I have is pc-2700 (for 333mhz FSB). Would it be wise to use 400 mhz instead of 333 with this RAM? I wanted to ask, before starting another fire

RAM: Rosewill 256mb DDR Dimm, pc-2700
Mommaboard: MSI KT3 Ultra

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All your base are... a bunch of cheap, low-res pixels on an overheating box.

The components should throttle down to the lowest common denominator, i.e. using slow RAM in a fast mobo won't do anything except slow down your computer since it will be waiting on the data from RAM. Conversely, using RAM faster than the FSB won't make your computer any faster since it won't be able to fully make use of fast RAM.

Now, you could overclock things and have some fun , but a stock system won't kill anything.

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Start Programming with Python-A beginner's guide to programming and the Python language.
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Common Sense v2.0-Striving to make the world a little bit smarter.

Thanks, man. I tried it and actually noticed better performance, but the graphics are kind of screwed up. I suspect this is the chipset's doing, as the mobo was made when 333mhz was the norm. It runs super stable at 333 and considering this is a 266mhz Athlon, I got a good deal out of it. I used the wire-in-socket trick to decrease the multiplier, since the CPU itself gets unstable above 2ghz.

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All your base are... a bunch of cheap, low-res pixels on an overheating box.

Hello all,
My poor desktop died about a year ago and I have been limping around on this PII laptop for almost a year now. Since Santa will be coming soon I figured I may as well give the old fella a hand and make a list for him to check twice.

My old broken system:

Big (4 full bays 400W power supply) ugly case in office beige. The custom paint does go a long way toward making it beautiful ugly though. One thing I like is both sides come off so you can get access to the whole mess.

mobo * 2 both burnt to a crisp. A-Bit KA7-100. This was nice for the most part until 25 (yup I counted) of the capacitors on the board started leaking this black goo that bled all over the mobo and eventually made the system so unstable it would just randomly hang/crash/refuse to start etc. So, being the super genius that I am I got another from ebay. Here the original poster has a good point, use trusted reseller's. After searching high and low I finally found the exact replica of the first mobo for $45 and can you imagine, the exact same thing happened to that as to the first. There was a reason to my madness as you'll see next. The only other real problem I had with this was that I had to update the bios so I could get more than 16 colors out of it but once I did that it worked great for about 4 years.

processor - My brother was in college (computer engineer) at the time I was piecing this computer together and we went back and forth about A-socket vs A-Slot. So in our infinite wisdom I went with the A-slot AMD Athlon 750. Now, when I burned up the first board I tried to find a replacement that used that processor, (I hear you people laughing at me) and found much to my dismay that I was up the proverbial creek. If anyone want a perfectly good A-Slot (which is pretty cool) processor they may contact me and I will send it to them free (you pay shipping to my paypal account). I did separate the heat sink (or perhaps fan) from the processor but reinstalled in when I was using the second mobo. You might want to take it off and replace the heat goop that goes between the two. Once again, it is the coolest looking processor I have ever seen. I will even remove the mounting setup from the mobo and include that at no extra charge. (I may remove it by cutting a square of mobo out but you will get it all)

512 meg 168pin(?) 100/133 mem on 4 cards. Mix and match but they did all work together once I got the order worked out.

Assorted accessories including cd-rw, split ergonomic keyboard. This thing rocks! It does make going back to a standard keyboard very difficult though. 40 gig hd, etc, etc, etc.

Santa's ransom payoff:

I would like a good solid setup and Crystalattice makes a good point, I don't need the new and great setup. I am just looking for a solid performer (I still dabble a little with Lightwave 7.0 just not for work anymore) with one small catch. I really love W2K and have had little to no problems with it. It is the ONLY ms os that I have actually liked and since I don't really play games I don't really want to change. Mostly though, I use it for running the GNU toolchain and average apps.

Now, my main question regarding the new mobo/processors is this XP I see attached to most of the new AMD processors. Are they really designed to work with ms XP or have I missed something? I really don't want to give any more money to the man and since I still have all my original disks reloading the os is no big deal. (Hey, if I could figure out how to flash my bios everything else is gravy!) I realize I will most likely have to get new memory which is sad but if I can use my existing modem, network card etc I would be willing to take that hit. If these new processors are designed to work with one os well, point me at one that will let me use w2k and I will be most grateful. Otherwise, I will take the advice from the spec's thread and make a choice based on price.

Oh, again, if anyone has a for real use for the A-Slot processor and you can prove to me you are in college I will waive the shipping and send it to you wrapped in a 1/4 mile of bubble wrap and a cardboard box. It will come by pony express though.

One other thing, I would like to migrate to a linux dual boot system so I can finally get away from CygWin (that thing gives me no end of headaches). I do have two options there. I could use my laptop (which while old works well) for one and the desktop for the other. Nothing more than a cursory answer about that needed here. The thread on the different versions is very informative. I am just curious about the dual boot portion here.

Well, thanks for any advice. If I can get this done before Big Red shows up I won't have to hold him up again this year and get myself back on the Good List. (Man, I hope he doesn't hold a grudge about last year.)

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"Opportunity is missed by most people because it comes dressed in overalls and looks like work."
--Thomas Alva Edison
"Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety."
--Benjamin Franklin
"A happy person is not a person in a certain set of circumstances, but rather a person with a certain set of attitudes."
--Hugh Downs

All the stupid Windows sticker means is that AMD paid $$ to MS to say that it works w/ XP. It's almost like a license (or a bribe) to say that hardware with the sticker is "made for Windows". It doesn't really mean anything except to marketing people. As long as it's powerful enough you can use any processor with any OS.

My recommendation is buy an AMD processor 1-2 generations behind the bleeding edge. You'll save roughly $200 on average and probably lose <10% performance, which you won't notice. (Your HD, CD, et al. have more of an affect on performance than the CPU does).

THE TRUTH ABOUT LINUX
Yes, Linux will run on older systems. But, it depends on somewhat on the distro and a lot on your GUI choice. There are some distros that are created especially to have a small footprint (hence better for older systems) and some are created to work only on 686-class chips (Pentium III and Athlons or better). Most distros are made to work on the original 386 but you can recompile the kernel for 686 enhancements.

The GUI is a bigger consideration. KDE and GNOME, the 2 biggest (literally) and most popular choices, give you many of the same features of Windows. However, because they do, they have high overhead: they take longer to load up and have more impact on your processor usage. There are other GUI's that are just as effective but don't have the built in apps; IceWM and Enlightenment come to mind. You can use nearly every Linux app under them, but some of the applets (like the KNewsTIcker) won't work, AFAIK. If you plan on using KDE or GNOME, I'd recommend having nearly the same specs as you would have in deciding on a Windows system; you can run them on less, but you'll be happier w/ more.

Obviously, if you dual-boot, your considerations for Windows has more of an impact. If you put Linux on your old laptop, you shouldn't have a problem though. One benefit of dual-booting is being able to access your Windows drive under Linux, say if you wanted to open a Word document in OpenOffice. You don't have to worry about trying to network them to do it.

On a personal note, I spend more time in Linux on my dual-boot system; the only time I go to Windows now is to play the occasional game. BTW, have you consider going Apple? I have one of those too, so I can give you some info on that, if you like.

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Start Programming with Python-A beginner's guide to programming and the Python language.
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Common Sense v2.0-Striving to make the world a little bit smarter.

I had a feeling it was something along those lines. Thanks for the clarification though. I can't see giving up on win entirely since I do use office regularly (2000) for work related things and I do still use LightWave when I need to feel creative. (there is a comforting pleasure about animating and modeling) From reading the linux related threads here it seems that OpenOffice is good but not a perfect match. Usually I use Word and Excel for anything that gets sent out. I also have workbooks that I keep all my company ledgers and billing with.

I have been looking at the AMD's in the 2000 range and a mobo with 512 megs with a good FSB speed are around $120 - $150. Reasonable in my book. Like I said before, I was happy with the AMD, I just picked the wrong type of processor.

This leads to the next statement about dual-boot. For the most part I would be happy to share the space with a snappy enough system but I have heard many horror stories about it. I'm not looking bargain basement since I have mostly reusable parts but I'm not interested in spending $1000 on a system that will rarely (if ever) be running at capacity. Were that I was still animating for work I would be willing to spend more, but I'm not and that makes the $$ a little foolish for a hobby. Kind of like buying a medium format camera to take snapshots with, you could do it, but why. Since I rarely if ever play games on the pc anymore (ps2 is good enough for me) I think I may have to build the new box linux style and let the laptop remain the windows box. Networking is not a big deal since I will need to get a router for multiple cpu's in the house (cable_guy finally has cable_modem) and I already have the LAN stuff for the laptop and have a plug-in card for mine and my wife's computer's anyhow.


You know, I always have like apple in a general kind of way but have some dislike about being on the outside of the group. I lived that life when I was firmly entrenched with the Amiga and when that line finally died I was out in the cold. I know that would not be the case with apple but once bitten twice shy. When you add the fact that all of my major commercial titles are MS than the choice for that kind of change becomes easier to make. I always have liked the 68000 processor family though, very nice design. I don't know what they (apple) are using these days but unless I was into publishing I think the cost/app replacement would be prohibitive.

Thanks for the info, some new, some verifying what I suspected. I think I will find a nice inexpensive mobo with an AMD 2100 or so, invest in doubling the ram and buy a hammer of a new hard drive to boot. Maybe if I have enough I will even get a monitor that will allow me to see what I am doing without squinting. The pix dsmith put up from his system made me drool. One can never (ever) have enough real-estate when it comes to the visuals.

__________________
"Opportunity is missed by most people because it comes dressed in overalls and looks like work."
--Thomas Alva Edison
"Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety."
--Benjamin Franklin
"A happy person is not a person in a certain set of circumstances, but rather a person with a certain set of attitudes."
--Hugh Downs

As a final thought on Apple, you can use Virtual PC to run Windows apps. Since you don't play many games on a PC, it may be something to consider.

MS bought Virtual PC approx. 2 years ago so it's effectively guaranteed to work. Interestingly enough, after they bought it they put their Xbox team to work optimizing it. What that means is Xbox 2 (which will be using the Mac PowerPC CPU and ATI video chip) will be running the Xbox 1 games in emulation mode. The assumption on the Mac forums is that once the bugs are worked out w/ the Xbox emulation, Virtual PC will be enhanced w/ that knowledge.

Theoritically, you could buy one Mac and run OS X, Windows, BSD and Linux (YellowDog just got a new version), not to mention some of the hobby OSes out there. I know what you want a new system for, but you might consider having one box that can do many things. That's why my next computer will be another Mac. Just a thought :-)

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Start Programming with Python-A beginner's guide to programming and the Python language.
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Common Sense v2.0-Striving to make the world a little bit smarter.

As tempting as that sounds....

I don't know, that would be very (very very) cool. Maybe for the next generation. I will have to keep up with this though. I have a cousin that maintains all the computers for a small community (pennsaver) paper and he is all about that curve. I'll have to talk to him. Sounds like you two would get along famously. It does sound like you prefer your apple to the rest though. I'll have to say, it's kind of like Saturn, never a bad word from the bulk of the users.

Thanks again,

Mark

Actually, the "XP" marked on Athlons is short for eXPerience... It's just a coincidence that the newest Windows OS is "XP"...
And get this: The performance rating numbers (2100+, 3200+, etc) actually compare the performance of the Athlon XP and the Athlon thunderbird (an Athlon XP 2.0GHZ is equivalent to a Thunderbird 2.4 GHZ). I'm sure this is a coincidence also. I actually like this PR system because it sheds light on the fact that there is more to CPU performance than MHZ alone... It's a nice way to compare an Athlon with a Pentium at a glance. But I don't know about those new Pentium model numbers for the Prescotts... They make no sense to me. If someone could explain the logic behind this 530 and 540 crapola, please do so.

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All your base are... a bunch of cheap, low-res pixels on an overheating box.

Thanks CyrixOnFire, I didn't know that. I guess I lack the eXPerience. 8-) It was my understanding though that AMD said F*%@ all this raw speed numbers crap and let's get with the program. Architecture has much more to do with the perceptions of the end user than raw speed alone. Having had first hand experience with a great architecture running at 33mhz (68040) in the early 90's I would have to agree with them. The P's have always liked to brag about how fast they were but still would run like a cold jar of peanut butter. Granted today the speeds have outpaced most regular users needs and people routinely buy computers that they will never use 25% of, I still have a problem with having to buy a 1000$ mobo ram combo to run a browser with. But PR is what runs this American (I guess others as well but I can only speak of what I know) economy, I guess we will continue to see this. Just because brute force can solve a problem does not make it the best solution.

That being said, my real goal this time is to reuse as much as I can. I still like my matrox dual head video card, sound card etc. I hope to get back up for the $400 range (most likely less) and still end up with a gig of ram and all the functionality that I need. Some people buy a porshe, I'll drop a blower on top of my stroked 350 and run like a bastard! To each their own I guess.

As they say on TV, welcome to crazyworld.