Vincent is back with a new mobo

[Vincent]

Goddamn it's good to be back online after being without a pc since 11th Feb...

It all started with me wanting to print something out.  The printer wouldn't work.  So I reinstalled, still no luck, reinstalled using XP's drivers instead of the official Epson ones.  Still no joy.  Then XP wouldn't even see the printer.

After trying to get that working XP suddenly couldn't see the gfx card.  I could see the bog standard jerky VGA adapter which was bearable.

Then the modem went (NIC connected ) ... along with all the USB devices (card reader, dictaphone).

So I though screw it, complete reinstall.  Backed up everything needed onto 4 DVD's (single layer) and reinstalled XP.

First two phases went fine, but when it was supposed to finally boot up into XP it hung during the loading.  Always at the same part (right after the keyboard check and screen flicker).

Then I noticed during boot that we had an "unknown flash type" right before trying to boot from CD/HD etc.

Tried another HD anyways and got the same result.  Tried booting from Morphix CD.  Worked a charm, but still no USB or NIC.

Trying to boot from floppy didn't work.  Even the boot up floppy seek failed to find the floppy, yet it worked under Morphix.

My bro in law finally found a BIOS for my mobo so we tried that and the flash utility said it wasn't compatible.

Really pissed off by this stage (Saturday night).  Left it alone all of Sunday and checked a few things on Monday.  No change, nothing worked.  Went to my bro in law's house Monday (14th) night and ordered a new mobo.

Me and Sioux double and triple checked all the switch card numbers and details.  Everything went fine.  Delivery due on Friday.

Friday came and went... no board.  My bro in law checked my emails on Friday night... not a sausage... not an email either :-P

He mailed them from my addy asking about it.  Monday (21st) night still hadn't heard back.  Shona (sis and wife of bro in law) phoned me with the customer services number, order number, account number and even the mobo number.

Phoned them on Tuesday afternoon (only open 9-5 mon-fri).  Couldn't authorise the card on Thursday.  Okay, with Sioux being at uni and needing her card to get money I couldn't give her the details again.

Phoned on again Thursday (phoned the same woman again - she gave me her direct number) and went over the details.  The expiry date was wrong.  Got that changed.  Should have the mobo within a couple of days (I'll believe it when I see it).

Tuesday (today) afternoon.  3pm.  In the middle of playing Final Fantasy X (god I missed the PC :-P) the doorbell went.  DHL courier.  Almost fainted! :-P

Got the mobo/cpu/ram.  Switched off the PS2 and ran upstairs with the package.  Got it all installed.

Started reinstalling WindowsXP again.  3 hours later (after installing all the gfx/sound/modem/otherstupiddrivers/etc) I'm finally online :-D

Currently updating AVG, but I need to reboot shortly.

So...

What've I missed?  Any good threads I should read up on since Friday 11th?  Any good (or should that be bad?)groaners?  Any real news on the Amiga front?



Oh, and has OS4 been released yet?

*me runs :-P

[Karlos]

Hi Vincent!

I guess it's been much the same. A few groaners, more referecnces to socks, sheep etc. An amusing (but frankly pointless) debate over the deathstar parked in orbit millions of years ago around saturn.

I hit 30 on 15th so I'm now an officially certified awld git and OS4 is still not shipping just yet.

Oh, ASCII discovered he was living in a simulated reality designed to keep him unaware of the true nature of the world...

[that_punk_guy]

.

[Vincent]

30? Is that all?

Me: Auld git! :-P

Sioux: Young whippersnapper! :-P

[odin]

Ello vince,
Good to hear you finally got it working then :-). One notable event was that KennyR (I won't be discussing that here, search around a bit in the archives) was banned but other than that: SSDD mostly here on a.org :-).

[blobrana]

@Vin$ent

xp sp1?

whats the mobo make....etc?

why leave all the juicy bits out? :-)

[Vincent]

Yup it's XP SP1.  I almost forgot about SP1, but I couldn't install the USB2.0 mobo drivers without SP1 so I had to dig it out from somewhere amongst my cds.  I really must have a labelling system :-D

It's a Foxconn 600 series mobo, 1.8gHz AMD Sempron 2600+, 256MB Ram and an onboard 5.1 soundcard (which is better than my cheap, on-sale £30 5.1 TECSound Seoundcard).  All for £120.  Oh, it's from NovaTech and the mobo is right about here.

It's replaced an AMD 1.4GHz with 256MB Ram (dunno if that ram is cocher so we got a new dimm with the mobo).  I'll get around to testing the dimms eventually.

--edit--

I've also partitioned the HD (20GB and 54GB) so that a reinstall doesn't mean making a 4DVD backup next time :-D

[blobrana]

Hum,
nice choise,
Impressively they’ve used DDR PC3200 (400MHz) mem...

For the future: Adding another similar 256MB stick will (increase mem to 512mb :-)  ) really speed things up (duel channel etc)


 

[Vincent]

Good to see that a very knowledgable one thinks that it was a great choice.  It was all that we really saw.

The fantastic thing is that the mobo comes with SATA.  That was a nice surprise.  The next HD we get will definitely be SATA.

We've already been thinking about adding more ram, but I want to check out my old ram first (2 128MB Dimms).  I have 3 spare slots, so I hope they will work and we can have 512 without having to buy more at this point :-D

[blobrana]

Hum,
your mobo will take 266,333,400 mem.
But,
avoid using 3 differing sticks with that chipset as there is a good chance that you will get memory issues…

(and when they do work), the slow memory will bottleneck your whole system like, er, xp.... :-)

Those tiny delicate SATA cables are so cool looking....
But try to resist ; wait until sata HD speeds increase, next year, past IDE.

[Vincent]

Those tiny delicate SATA cables are so cool looking....

I know, I got SATA and normal PATA cables with the mobo... the SATA one's are just class.  Pity I can't use them.

I'm going to buy a new psu tomorrow so I might just get round to buying a couple of the rounded PATA cables too.

[adz]

blobrana wrote:
Hum,
nice choise,
Impressively they’ve used DDR PC3200 (400MHz) mem...

For the future: Adding another similar 256MB stick will (increase mem to 512mb :-)  ) really speed things up (duel channel etc)

The Skt 462 Sempron is essentially a stripped down Athlon XP Barton, so therefore suffers from the same FSB bottleneck. With a default FSB of 166MHz, it is pointless to run the RAM at 200MHz, in fact you can actually retard system performance by doing so.

As for dual channel (something the KT600 doesn't support) on a Barton/T'bred based Athlon, that is a total wrought. Max CPU throughput is 2.7GB/s @ 166MHz, so having dual channel RAM with a max bandwidth of 5.4GB/s @ 166MHz, doesn't make sense, better to invest in a single 512MB stick, cheaper too.

Even still, the Skt 462 Athlons/Semprons are solid performers, in fact, it might even be worth trying to push the FSB to 200MHz, I did that on a Sempron based machine at work, she handled it no problems, didn't even need a vcore increase.

[PMC]

Karlos wrote:
Hi Vincent!

I guess it's been much the same. A few groaners, more referecnces to socks, sheep etc.

Karlos, I guess you'll join me in congratulating Vincent on receiving his Mobo and saying how nice it is that his music is being appreciated by a wider audience....

Oh, hang on.  Wrong Mobo...

[Vincent]

:lol:  Oh dear...  :-P


Well, just got back home and replaced my old 300w atx psu with a bog standard Colors IT dual fan 400w psu for £14.  Silent compared to my old one :-D

Got a couple of those rounded IDE cables too - fantastic invention :-)

[the_leander]

dude, seriously, if you payed £14 for that PSU I would strongly urge you to start looking for a new one quick smart - cheep PSU's tend to not be of good build quality and given its key role in your computer is not something I would EVER skimp on again, take it from someone who lost one of the best systems he has ever owned due to a cheep PSU dying horribly.