Upgrade time

[kato2274]

well I kind of got forced into this one. random lockups on my tbird1200 were not solved with chipset driver updates, reformats, different OS, or known good PS.

After spending about 10 hours sorting through the mess (mainly because my wife can't play the sims, which is the biggest lcokup culprit) it got narrowed down to either motherboard, RAM, or CPU. Too tired of the whole mess, I decided to just perform a barebones upgrade.

I got a KG7-RAID motherboard on the way 256MB PC2100 DDR, A new case and 300 WATT PS (stylish), a XP1800+ CPU, and new DVD ROM (for good measure.) all told it's setting me back around $270 including shipping, but I only should have to pay around $186 as I have an $84 credit memo with the place I ordered.

when finished system should be
XP1800+
256MB DDR
SB Live 5.1
Radeon VIVO 64MB DDR
40GB WD Hard Drive
Generic NIC
Liteon 32X CDRW
16X DVD
80GB hard drive mapped from my network for mp3 storage

The only thing I'm taking a hit on is the memory. I have 512MB PC133 right now, but I'm hoping to put it up on ebay or recycle it into another machine.

what do you guys (gals) think?

[Radical Dreamer]

Looks like a nice rig to me, I really like the choice of Burner, I love my lite-on.....one thing though, make sure ya get good memory, it makes all the difference in the world

[JungleMan1]

Nice system though the video card could use an upgrade, and I'm not all that clear why you got at KG7 (it's over a year old).

I also agree Liteons are great

[kato2274]

Originally posted by JungleMan1
Nice system though the video card could use an upgrade, and I'm not all that clear why you got at KG7 (it's over a year old).

there's a little thing that you'll discover later in life called budget. Would I prefer a newer ASUS or MSI DDR400 board? of course, but when I can pick up an Athlon XP compatible board with raid for $47 as opposed to over $100 for one of the above mentioned boards, it's really a no brainer. Especially with a mortgage, car payments, baby on the way etc etc.

Same with the video card, I rarely game. I'd love a radeon 9700 but it would not be put to hardly any kind of use and ultimately would be a waste of a lot of money.

I always try to stay in the middle of the road with hardware. No sense trying to stay on the cutting edge because you only fall off and find you are out a ton of money for your troubles.

[JungleMan1]

$47, you got a nice deal on that. I thought they were kind of frozen into a price the same as KT266a boards. Where'd you get it for that price?

Trust me I am on a budget too!

[kato2274]

http://www.compgeeks.com/details.asp?invtid=KG7RAID

looks like I was wise not to waste any time. they are all gone now.

[Radical Dreamer]

I like it cept this

- PLEASE NOTE: To use all four DIMM Sockets, Registered DDR RAM is Required.

[JungleMan1]

That's a limitation of the AMD 761 chipset...doesn't VIA KT266a/KT333 also have this issue? Except with the AMD you can only use two but the VIA you can use three...

Though, in a home environment, most people just use two RAM slots anyway. A gig of RAM is far more than enough for most people and can be done with two RAM slots.

[FatalException0E]

Hmmmmm......nice setup, BUT........
I had a machine that had lockups in the simms, as well as a few other games. It turned out to be a bad sound card. The weird thing is, sounds played just fine. It wasn't a compatibility problem, either, because we used the same model sound card to replace it. It was using the newest drivers from the beginning, too. Weird stuff can happen with games

[kato2274]

Originally posted by FatalException0E
Hmmmmm......nice setup, BUT........
I had a machine that had lockups in the simms, as well as a few other games. It turned out to be a bad sound card. The weird thing is, sounds played just fine. It wasn't a compatibility problem, either, because we used the same model sound card to replace it. It was using the newest drivers from the beginning, too. Weird stuff can happen with games

been down that road, tried several different sound cards, several different video cards, no sound card, PCI video card, new power supply, etc . etc. etc.

and it wasn't just games, sometimes IE would just lock up for no reason.

at this point it's easier to start with a solid brand new stable base in a new mobo memory and CPU. I'm almost positive that it starts there, and if not, then I'll have a newer system and I can recycle the other hardware or sell it on ebay.