Computer Problems/Upgrades/Info

[Shattered_Steel]

Yes, I was up to the equivalent of 2:40 last night. I'm just a little sleepy.

XP loaded, and next up is to connect everything up and get it online. Then After all the drivers are loaded, I'll get Firefox and start installing games. Still a lot of work to do.

 

[Bonecrusher]

Yes, I was up to the equivalent of 2:40 last night. I'm just a little sleepy.

XP loaded, and next up is to connect everything up and get it online. Then After all the drivers are loaded, I'll get Firefox and start installing games. Still a lot of work to do.

Well I was up til 4 playing L4D with Lurk!

You're welcome Jason.

 

[«BuA»Lurker_71]

Yeah Jason, get finished so we don't have to put up with as many crack-tards taking your spot on the public games!

 

[Morty]

Finally it's up. See if you can make a base ISO of the XP so you don't have to go thru this again.

 

[Saigon Lucipher]

Ok, I know i should go nvidia on my graphics card choice but.....I did some research and checked around and if I get a ATI 3850 now and one when i upgrade i should be blazing through anything really....If anyone has a thought on this plz share.

 

[Bonecrusher]

Ok, I know i should go nvidia on my graphics card choice but.....I did some research and checked around and if I get a ATI 3850 now and one when i upgrade i should be blazing through anything really....If anyone has a thought on this plz share.

I'm going to assume you're talking about the HD 3850...

It looks to be a half decent card. I didn't do a price comparison or anything, but I'm going to share my opinion:

I used to run ATI's all the time... but then I had two 9800 series cards break on me, one after about 4 months and one after about a year... and they were considered to be solid cards. The other thing about ATI, atleast a few years ago (maybe they've changed), their software and drivers for the cards add SO MANY PROCESSES to the to the computer. Nvidia hardly adds any.

The other thing is concerning running two of them. I've never tried SLI or Crossfire so I'm just speaking from what I've heard. But basically SLI and Crossfire have spotty support. Granted it has probably come a long way since EVGA is coming out with boards to run trips. But who the hell wants to blow $1200+ on videocards? To me SLI/Crossfire is a last resort when your rig is almost out of date and can't run the brand new games. At that point whatever single card you have you can probably find for pretty cheap, and it can boost your performance. But if you're building in the very near future just save your pennies and get a shiny new Geforce 280 or something. The crds they're bringing out now are true beasts and there is no reason to get more than one at this point.

To me it looks like the Nvidia vs ATI battle is the same as the Intel vs AMD battle. The three letter acronyms are getting raped! Funny I suppose... because doesn't AMD own ATI now? Oh dear.

Use the rig steel just bought as a model... he did pretty well with his purchasing if it wasn't for that damn green pixel on his new monitor! I don't think you're monitor/keyboard/mouse shopping are you? So you can focus on the shiny hardware

Theres my .02

 

[TAZTG]

Go to Tom's Hardware or Guru3D for reviews and charts. Nothing like reading up on hardware to make an informed purchasing decision.

On a Side Note, my new GC and Case is being delivered today. Wow NewEgg delivers fast to MD wonder why they can't find KY??

 

[Saigon Lucipher]

Dont know how the can miss it,look for the rednecks and shotgun weddings if you see that you are there

 

[Bonecrusher]

We get lucky with the newegg deliveries up in this area. I'm not sure if its the same warehouse for Dave or not... but if I order something from them at 3pm one day and it comes out of their New Jersey warehouse, its on my doorstep before noon the next day, and thats free shipping

 

[Saigon Lucipher]

wow...well i took into account what ou said and i think i am going to get the 9800GTX+.I figured that will serve its purpose and serve it well for me at least.

 

[Bonecrusher]

That should be able to last you atleast one more generation of game engines. And I'd consider that card to be pretty cheap at this point.

 

[TAZTG]

OH WOE IS ME (CRAP)

Alright Boys have some serious problems here. I can't adjust my screen resolution beyond 640x480x32 thats were its stuck at. It lets you move the slider and when you click apply the screen doesn't change and it resets back to 640x480x32.
Here's what happened.
Got new card in and boy its freaking huge. Had to move HD's to bottom of case and still only have about 1/16" space between card and HD Cage. Anyway I installed the card and the new NVidia Drivers 182.08. All seemed to go well until I restarted. It would not let me change the resolution in NVidia Settings, NVidia Control Panel or even right clicking on desktop route. It appears everything is installed correctly. I decided to rollback drivers and install the previous version 181.20 which is the one that came on the EVGA CD. It still didn't work CRAP!! Now I am thinking time to RMA the 285, so I called Support first at EVGA and they basically did same **** I did. They had me switch the monitor to analog connection and that was a fail. Then they said probably a bad card and RMA time. OK No Problem **** happens and I put my GTS8800 back reinstalled drivers and had the same problem. Damn, atleast its probably not the new card but WTF. I reinstalled the NForce Drivers for the 680i Motherboard. Nope, damn running out of options now. I did monitor drivers (wishful thinking I know). Guess that leaves me with Reinstalling Windows. Don't want to reformat and start over again. Even though there's not much on here its just a bitch doing it.

Question to you Tech Geeks (Morty) and anyone else, Any IDEAS WTF is doing this..

Update: Seems its the latest NVidia Drivers doing this for alot of folks. Doesn't affect Games, they still have 1920x1200 Res.. Woot. Only messing with XP.

 

[Morty]

OK...I didn't have the best day at work because some ****head decided to go around to PCs in our IT department and used the keystrokes to turn the desktop upside down. Well he hit one too many and it wouldn't go back to right side up with either the keystroke or via control panel. We ended up having to remove the damn video driver from safe mode which took most of the time since the user change the admin password. I hate going back to my old school days.

Ok...TAZ...first thought is to remove the device from device manager. Remove the nVidia adaptor from device manager. You can get there via control panel or right clicking on My Computer, selecting properties, hardware tab, device manager button. Remove the display adaptor for nVidia. If it asks to reboot then the driver is corrupt. It shouldn't.

Within the list of devices in device manager select any device. Right click on the device and select scan for hardware changes. It should reinstall the driver back in without a problem. Then you should be able to make adjustment from the video properties to get it to the right resolution.

Another suggestion, the video card can't see the limits on the plug and play monitor. Suggest that you download the driver for your monitor and have it installed and detected.

nVidia's control panel kind of sucks and remembers certain profiles. Make sure you are running on the correct software for the driver version.

 

[TAZTG]

Morty, I have been on other forums and pertty much same suggestions all around.
The Monitor is detected and I even swapped Monitor's for trouble shooting.
I have the uninstall Drivers down to a science.
Start in Safemode, uninstall from Add/Remove Programs, restart back into Safemode use Driver Sweeper to clean up, restart back into Safemode install Drivers and even tried to restart back to Normal Mode install Drivers. Drivers Used: 180.48, 181.20, 182.06, 182.08. All have Failed.

I then attempted today to restore back to my 8800-GTS with the drivers that was working fine 180.48. (Fail) Hmm how about System Restore, went back to a known good point last month, it wouldn't restore. (Probably the NForce Drivers I updated). Yes, updated all drivers uninstalled all Nvidia and reinstalled all NVidia multiple times. (All have Failed)

Yea, its time to start over.

Now need some assistance on how to set up Dual Boot. I have 2 HD's C: & E:, When I first installed the OS to include all patches and updates, latest & greatest Drivers and even a few Games. The OS was Tested & Tweaked for gaming, then I used Norton Ghost to Copy C: to E: in case I need to start over. I then of course uninstalled Ghost from C: since it was such a system hog. Is there a way to set up a Dual Boot System. I want to Boot from E: and then Reformat C: and start over?? Yea I would Swap Graphic Cards and see if the GTX 285 works on a fresh install in C: This would work out great cause I could keep gaming with no down time.
If not I could Format C: Wipe Clean and Disk Copy E: to C: and then load a clean OS to E: (Sounds the Same)

Morty the Boot.ini is confusing and E doesn't have a 8MB Unallocated Section. E: is Disk 0 and C: is Disk 1 my current boot.ini reads like this.
[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\windows
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /fastdetect /noexecute=optin

 

[Bonecrusher]

So... you're saying you have an exact copy of your OS on another hard drive... and you're asking how to go about booting to it?

 

[Morty]

[boot loader]
timeout=30 Morty= This is the time to select to dual boot system
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\windows Morty+ multi mean more than one disk which Zero or on physical drive. disk(0) is your primay boot hard drive which is zero or your boot drive in the bios. R disk..no worries. Partition is 1 which means only on partition exists on the drive windows is located there. All defaults settings.
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /fastdetect /noexecute=optin Morty: This what the Bios looks for to boot your system for a Microsoft OS. These are your setting which are exactly the same as the default settings.

It pisses me off that no one in nVidia ran into this problem. I wish you can replicate it in another system before do a hard reset.

 

[TAZTG]

OK, can E: Drive be booted? Does it have a MBR since it was copied from C: using Disk Copy. Get on TS tonite or better yet call me later after you do MATH Homework..

 

[Saigon Lucipher]

Wow that is sounding like a serious/aggravating problem. Well i figured out why L4D wont run, and guess what its the 7600 GS that is bottle necking.How do i know this you ask.....One is the fact that it runs decent in 800x600 and I have checked forums and that is the most known error.Any ideas, and video card suggestions?

 

[Morty]

Wow that is sounding like a serious/aggravating problem. Well i figured out why L4D wont run, and guess what its the 7600 GS that is bottle necking.How do i know this you ask.....One is the fact that it runs decent in 800x600 and I have checked forums and that is the most known error.Any ideas, and video card suggestions?

What is your processor, how much ram do you have, and is your current operating system version? (Home, Pro, Vista and SP2 or SP3)

 

[TAZTG]

Reformatted E: and Installed XP Pro with the GTX 285 SC.. Here's my Status
Installed NForce - PASS
Installed GeForce 182.08 - PASS (Yea baby)

Now just take my time and install the rest of the Crap..
Off to buy a new Case for Linda..

(Update: Look how huge that card actually is, its very close to the HD Cage.)