Should I Do This?

A couple of months ago -- some of you may even remember this -- I
replaced the 1.9 GHz P4 in my P4T-E mbo with a 2.8 GHz P4 that I bought
from Powerleap: http://www.powerleap.com/

The new processor works fine and I've noticed an improvement in
performance. Nice. I ought to be happy.

But.

I have installed Windows XP Media Edition on a spare partition (I have a
multi-boot system). It's working OK, and I wanted to use it to run the
tuner on my ATI All-In-Wonder 9600 AGP video card. But WinXP's Media
Center wouldn't recognize the tuner. So I went to the ATI site and
discovered that in order for Windows to recognize and control the
All-In-Wonder's tuner, I needed special drivers that cost me $30
including shipping.

OK, so I bought the drivers from those cheapskates at ATI, but when I
tried to load them, the installation program told me that the
installation failed because my processor didn't support Hyperthreading.
Looks like my new processor is fast, but it's still old technology.
Sigh.

So I've been looking for new equipment that will support Hyperthreading.
Why? Why not be satisfied with what I have? I dunno. That's part of
the question I'm asking, I suppose. Maybe I should be happy with what I
have.

It looks like if I want hyperthreading, I'll need to replace both my
processor and my motherboard, which also means I'll need new DDR2 memory.

So I've been shopping and I've found (at Monarch Computer Systems) the
following:

Asus P5AD2 Premium Mbo for $269
Intel P4 Prescott 3.2 GHz 800 FSB processor with fan for $224
1 Gb Corsair DDR2 (667) PC-5400 RAM in two matched 512 Mb sticks for $365

And that totals $858.

Now it's not worth $858 to me just for the pride of watching WinXP Media
Edition run my video card's tuner. I already have ATI software that
will run the tuner. But I figure it might be worth it if I ended up
with a blazing fast machine that would enable me to manipulate, edit,
and compress video noticeably faster than I can now. I do a lot of work
with large video files.

I'm not wealthy, but I do have $858 to spend if I choose to. I just
wonder if it's worth it.

The new mbo will have only three PCI slots, but with onboard sound and
LAN, I can get by with just three (fax modem, SCSI, and HDTV Wonder).
And the new board would have USB 2, which would be an improvement over
the USB ports on my P4T-E. And it would have a few other neat features,
some of which I don't fully understand yet.

But apparently the new board will support only two IDE devices on one
cable. Can that be correct? That's what the manual I downloaded says,
I think. However, it looks like there are two IDE sockets. And the
manual says something about configuring SATA as standard IDE. So maybe
I could intall my three EIDE hard drives and one IDE DVD-R drive on the
new board just as I have them installed on my current board? Could I?
My 120 Gbyte and 250 Gbyte drives are both Western Digital and appear to
be ATA100. My Maxtor 40 Gbyte drive appears to be ATA133. I want these
drives to be in my new system. I need the space, and as best I can
tell, even if I bought three new Serial ATA drives, they couldn't hold
this much data.

I've never set up a RAID array. Hardly even know the principles behind
such a thing. Could I set up my current drives in a RAID array with
this new board?

I'm not an overclocker. So I worry that the P5AD2 has more capabilities
than I actually need.

That's about it. Those are the thoughts going through my head. Anybody
got any advice or words of caution? Thanks.

--
Bill Anderson

I am the Mighty Favog

"Bill Anderson" wrote in message
...
A couple of months ago -- some of you may even remember this -- I replaced
the 1.9 GHz P4 in my P4T-E mbo with a 2.8 GHz P4 that I bought from
Powerleap: http://www.powerleap.com/

The new processor works fine and I've noticed an improvement in
performance. Nice. I ought to be happy.

But.

I have installed Windows XP Media Edition on a spare partition (I have a
multi-boot system). It's working OK, and I wanted to use it to run the
tuner on my ATI All-In-Wonder 9600 AGP video card. But WinXP's Media
Center wouldn't recognize the tuner. So I went to the ATI site and
discovered that in order for Windows to recognize and control the
All-In-Wonder's tuner, I needed special drivers that cost me $30 including
shipping.

OK, so I bought the drivers from those cheapskates at ATI, but when I
tried to load them, the installation program told me that the installation
failed because my processor didn't support Hyperthreading. Looks like my
new processor is fast, but it's still old technology. Sigh.

So I've been looking for new equipment that will support Hyperthreading.
Why? Why not be satisfied with what I have? I dunno. That's part of the
question I'm asking, I suppose. Maybe I should be happy with what I have.

It looks like if I want hyperthreading, I'll need to replace both my
processor and my motherboard, which also means I'll need new DDR2 memory.

So I've been shopping and I've found (at Monarch Computer Systems) the
following:

Asus P5AD2 Premium Mbo for $269
Intel P4 Prescott 3.2 GHz 800 FSB processor with fan for $224
1 Gb Corsair DDR2 (667) PC-5400 RAM in two matched 512 Mb sticks for $365

And that totals $858.

Now it's not worth $858 to me just for the pride of watching WinXP Media
Edition run my video card's tuner. I already have ATI software that will
run the tuner. But I figure it might be worth it if I ended up with a
blazing fast machine that would enable me to manipulate, edit, and
compress video noticeably faster than I can now. I do a lot of work with
large video files.

I'm not wealthy, but I do have $858 to spend if I choose to. I just
wonder if it's worth it.

If you do, buy it from newegg and save some money --- $830 shipped.

DonC wrote:
"Bill Anderson" wrote in message
...

A couple of months ago -- some of you may even remember this -- I replaced
the 1.9 GHz P4 in my P4T-E mbo with a 2.8 GHz P4 that I bought from
Powerleap: http://www.powerleap.com/

The new processor works fine and I've noticed an improvement in
performance. Nice. I ought to be happy.

But.

I have installed Windows XP Media Edition on a spare partition (I have a
multi-boot system). It's working OK, and I wanted to use it to run the
tuner on my ATI All-In-Wonder 9600 AGP video card. But WinXP's Media
Center wouldn't recognize the tuner. So I went to the ATI site and
discovered that in order for Windows to recognize and control the
All-In-Wonder's tuner, I needed special drivers that cost me $30 including
shipping.

OK, so I bought the drivers from those cheapskates at ATI, but when I
tried to load them, the installation program told me that the installation
failed because my processor didn't support Hyperthreading. Looks like my
new processor is fast, but it's still old technology. Sigh.

So I've been looking for new equipment that will support Hyperthreading.
Why? Why not be satisfied with what I have? I dunno. That's part of the
question I'm asking, I suppose. Maybe I should be happy with what I have.

It looks like if I want hyperthreading, I'll need to replace both my
processor and my motherboard, which also means I'll need new DDR2 memory.

So I've been shopping and I've found (at Monarch Computer Systems) the
following:

Asus P5AD2 Premium Mbo for $269
Intel P4 Prescott 3.2 GHz 800 FSB processor with fan for $224
1 Gb Corsair DDR2 (667) PC-5400 RAM in two matched 512 Mb sticks for $365

And that totals $858.

Now it's not worth $858 to me just for the pride of watching WinXP Media
Edition run my video card's tuner. I already have ATI software that will
run the tuner. But I figure it might be worth it if I ended up with a
blazing fast machine that would enable me to manipulate, edit, and
compress video noticeably faster than I can now. I do a lot of work with
large video files.

I'm not wealthy, but I do have $858 to spend if I choose to. I just
wonder if it's worth it.


If you do, buy it from newegg and save some money --- $830 shipped.



But Newegg doesn't have the mbo in stock. I checked there first.

--
Bill Anderson

I am the Mighty Favog

"Bill Anderson" wrote in message
...
DonC wrote:
"Bill Anderson" wrote in message
...

A couple of months ago -- some of you may even remember this -- I
replaced the 1.9 GHz P4 in my P4T-E mbo with a 2.8 GHz P4 that I bought
from Powerleap: http://www.powerleap.com/

The new processor works fine and I've noticed an improvement in
performance. Nice. I ought to be happy.

But.

I have installed Windows XP Media Edition on a spare partition (I have a
multi-boot system). It's working OK, and I wanted to use it to run the
tuner on my ATI All-In-Wonder 9600 AGP video card. But WinXP's Media
Center wouldn't recognize the tuner. So I went to the ATI site and
discovered that in order for Windows to recognize and control the
All-In-Wonder's tuner, I needed special drivers that cost me $30
including shipping.

OK, so I bought the drivers from those cheapskates at ATI, but when I
tried to load them, the installation program told me that the
installation failed because my processor didn't support Hyperthreading.
Looks like my new processor is fast, but it's still old technology. Sigh.

So I've been looking for new equipment that will support Hyperthreading.
Why? Why not be satisfied with what I have? I dunno. That's part of
the question I'm asking, I suppose. Maybe I should be happy with what I
have.

It looks like if I want hyperthreading, I'll need to replace both my
processor and my motherboard, which also means I'll need new DDR2 memory.

So I've been shopping and I've found (at Monarch Computer Systems) the
following:

Asus P5AD2 Premium Mbo for $269
Intel P4 Prescott 3.2 GHz 800 FSB processor with fan for $224
1 Gb Corsair DDR2 (667) PC-5400 RAM in two matched 512 Mb sticks for $365

And that totals $858.

Now it's not worth $858 to me just for the pride of watching WinXP Media
Edition run my video card's tuner. I already have ATI software that will
run the tuner. But I figure it might be worth it if I ended up with a
blazing fast machine that would enable me to manipulate, edit, and
compress video noticeably faster than I can now. I do a lot of work with
large video files.

I'm not wealthy, but I do have $858 to spend if I choose to. I just
wonder if it's worth it.


If you do, buy it from newegg and save some money --- $830 shipped.



But Newegg doesn't have the mbo in stock. I checked there first.

Right you are. FWIW, they do have the P4 3.0 on special for $192 shipped.
Is point 2 worth $32 more? : )

In article , Bill Anderson
wrote:

A couple of months ago -- some of you may even remember this -- I
replaced the 1.9 GHz P4 in my P4T-E mbo with a 2.8 GHz P4 that I bought
from Powerleap: http://www.powerleap.com/

The new processor works fine and I've noticed an improvement in
performance. Nice. I ought to be happy.

But.

I have installed Windows XP Media Edition on a spare partition (I have a
multi-boot system). It's working OK, and I wanted to use it to run the
tuner on my ATI All-In-Wonder 9600 AGP video card. But WinXP's Media
Center wouldn't recognize the tuner. So I went to the ATI site and
discovered that in order for Windows to recognize and control the
All-In-Wonder's tuner, I needed special drivers that cost me $30
including shipping.

OK, so I bought the drivers from those cheapskates at ATI, but when I
tried to load them, the installation program told me that the
installation failed because my processor didn't support Hyperthreading.
Looks like my new processor is fast, but it's still old technology.
Sigh.

So I've been looking for new equipment that will support Hyperthreading.
Why? Why not be satisfied with what I have? I dunno. That's part of
the question I'm asking, I suppose. Maybe I should be happy with what I
have.

It looks like if I want hyperthreading, I'll need to replace both my
processor and my motherboard, which also means I'll need new DDR2 memory.

So I've been shopping and I've found (at Monarch Computer Systems) the
following:

Asus P5AD2 Premium Mbo for $269
Intel P4 Prescott 3.2 GHz 800 FSB processor with fan for $224
1 Gb Corsair DDR2 (667) PC-5400 RAM in two matched 512 Mb sticks for $365

And that totals $858.

Now it's not worth $858 to me just for the pride of watching WinXP Media
Edition run my video card's tuner. I already have ATI software that
will run the tuner. But I figure it might be worth it if I ended up
with a blazing fast machine that would enable me to manipulate, edit,
and compress video noticeably faster than I can now. I do a lot of work
with large video files.

I'm not wealthy, but I do have $858 to spend if I choose to. I just
wonder if it's worth it.

The new mbo will have only three PCI slots, but with onboard sound and
LAN, I can get by with just three (fax modem, SCSI, and HDTV Wonder).
And the new board would have USB 2, which would be an improvement over
the USB ports on my P4T-E. And it would have a few other neat features,
some of which I don't fully understand yet.

But apparently the new board will support only two IDE devices on one
cable. Can that be correct? That's what the manual I downloaded says,
I think. However, it looks like there are two IDE sockets. And the
manual says something about configuring SATA as standard IDE. So maybe
I could intall my three EIDE hard drives and one IDE DVD-R drive on the
new board just as I have them installed on my current board? Could I?
My 120 Gbyte and 250 Gbyte drives are both Western Digital and appear to
be ATA100. My Maxtor 40 Gbyte drive appears to be ATA133. I want these
drives to be in my new system. I need the space, and as best I can
tell, even if I bought three new Serial ATA drives, they couldn't hold
this much data.

I've never set up a RAID array. Hardly even know the principles behind
such a thing. Could I set up my current drives in a RAID array with
this new board?

I'm not an overclocker. So I worry that the P5AD2 has more capabilities
than I actually need.

That's about it. Those are the thoughts going through my head. Anybody
got any advice or words of caution? Thanks.

I would break the problem down into two pieces.

1) Find a PCI tuner card that MCE understands and supports. I wouldn't
have paid ATI money for software, instead investing in a different
tuner. The idea being, the video card can evolve separate from
the tuner, and I can shop for the best tuner (i.e. best output
modes, for PVR purposes, or best output modes for uncompressed
video, which may offer improved quality for post processing). A
company selling a tuner alone, has more to gain from making it
versatile/supported, then when it is bolted to the side of a
gaming video card.
2) Investigate the best way to manipulate, edit, and compress
video. When it comes to hardware, there are some PCI cards
that are used for special effects (with a co-processor for
compression), that can provide some benefit. But many of the
more exotic special effects are still done with the motherboard
processor, so unfortunately, even though the PCI hardware
is expensive, it doesn't solve the whole problem on its own.
Check out rec.video.desktop and seek their advice.

I cannot help but feel right now, that the 915/925 family is,
itself, a dead end. Yes, it offers the LGA775 socket, and that
aligns with Intel's mainstream plans. But, to me, that is all
it offers right now. All that it does, is add the expense of
conversion to SATA, PCI Express Video, DDR2 memory, and so on.
You have a motherboard, with a compromise mix of PCI/PCI Express
connectors, which is a problem if you run a bunch of special
PCI cards for what you do.

Intel gave us the stick, but they forgot the carrot.

And, with the move to dual core processors, I'm not sure that
in the future, people will want to upgrade to a dual core
processor, only to have to re-buy all their application software,
which will have to be coded to use multiple processors/threads.
There hasn't been a pronounced move in that direction, even
though the idea has been around for a while, so don't expect
software that can use both processors in a dual core, any
time soon. (Sure, you can use two separate programs to good
effect, but to me that is not seamless - the user has to think
about keeping both cores busy.)

I guess my answer to you would be, buy a P4C800-E, some DDR
memory (CAS3 is good enough), a Northwood processor (or whatever
you can afford in a socket 478 processor, before they are completely
gone from the market). That way, you'll have PCI slots,
slightly cheaper memory etc. With two IDE connectors on the
Southbridge, that is support for four drives right there.
(Intel, on the new boards with ICH6, has four SATA and two
IDE drives supported, to transition away from IDE.)

If you are a cheapskate, you could even buy a lower speed
processor, and overclock it.

The idea behind overclocking, is not to run the core faster than
the processor family can handle, but to enhance the speed the
memory can be run at. Buying the slower speed processor is so
you get a lower multiplier, and can run the FSB/memory faster.
Visit http://www.cpudatabase.com/CPUdb and see what the average
overclock is, for a given processor. For example, a 2.8C can be
run at 3.4GHz, meaning the memory can be run DDR500 instead of
DDR400.

(Mostly) Newegg prices:

Overclocker approach -
P4C800-E Deluxe $179
2.8C/FSB800/512KB ($191 retail w. HSF, $181 OEM w. no HSF, for a Zalman)
2x512MB PC4000 DDR memory 3-4-4-8 or better $277
Optional: Zalman 7000A/B AlCu quieter cooling $32
Total = $669 for a 3.4GHz system

Conservative approach -
P4C800-E Deluxe $179
3.2C/FSB800/512KB ($249 with HSF)
2x512MB PC3200 DDR memory 3-3-3-8 or better 2x$96 (crucial.com)
Total = $620 for a 3.2Ghz system

There are other approaches, like P5P800, if you only want to
go LGA775, and keep the rest of the legacy interfaces. I don't
know how problem free this board has been, so you may want to
investigate via Google or Abxzone forums.

In all of the above, I haven't mentioned AMD. My reason for
not mentioning them, is if you decide to buy a hardware video
acceleration card, some companies don't support AMD platforms
that well. If all you want to do is software video editing, it
is possible an Athlon64 solution would work for you as well.
After all, the AMD boards are still AGP/PCI/DDR, so they will
allow reuse of your other hardware. No hyperthreading, of
course, for any software installers stupid enough to
actually mandate its use.

A8V Deluxe (Athlon64, Socket 939, dual channel) $129
Athlon64 3500+ retail with HSF $283
2x512MB PC3200 DDR memory 3-3-3-8 or better 2x$96 (crucial.com)
Total: $604

HTH,
Paul

You should take this project right to the finish because you will forever be
wondering if it could do better than it is.
Money is only money and you can`t take it with you if you died tomorrow.
Finish your project in a full and complete manner.


"Bill Anderson" wrote in message
...
A couple of months ago -- some of you may even remember this -- I
replaced the 1.9 GHz P4 in my P4T-E mbo with a 2.8 GHz P4 that I bought
from Powerleap: http://www.powerleap.com/

The new processor works fine and I've noticed an improvement in
performance. Nice. I ought to be happy.

But.

I have installed Windows XP Media Edition on a spare partition (I have a
multi-boot system). It's working OK, and I wanted to use it to run the
tuner on my ATI All-In-Wonder 9600 AGP video card. But WinXP's Media
Center wouldn't recognize the tuner. So I went to the ATI site and
discovered that in order for Windows to recognize and control the
All-In-Wonder's tuner, I needed special drivers that cost me $30
including shipping.

OK, so I bought the drivers from those cheapskates at ATI, but when I
tried to load them, the installation program told me that the
installation failed because my processor didn't support Hyperthreading.
Looks like my new processor is fast, but it's still old technology.
Sigh.

So I've been looking for new equipment that will support Hyperthreading.
Why? Why not be satisfied with what I have? I dunno. That's part of
the question I'm asking, I suppose. Maybe I should be happy with what I
have.

It looks like if I want hyperthreading, I'll need to replace both my
processor and my motherboard, which also means I'll need new DDR2 memory.

So I've been shopping and I've found (at Monarch Computer Systems) the
following:

Asus P5AD2 Premium Mbo for $269
Intel P4 Prescott 3.2 GHz 800 FSB processor with fan for $224
1 Gb Corsair DDR2 (667) PC-5400 RAM in two matched 512 Mb sticks for $365

And that totals $858.

Now it's not worth $858 to me just for the pride of watching WinXP Media
Edition run my video card's tuner. I already have ATI software that
will run the tuner. But I figure it might be worth it if I ended up
with a blazing fast machine that would enable me to manipulate, edit,
and compress video noticeably faster than I can now. I do a lot of work
with large video files.

I'm not wealthy, but I do have $858 to spend if I choose to. I just
wonder if it's worth it.

The new mbo will have only three PCI slots, but with onboard sound and
LAN, I can get by with just three (fax modem, SCSI, and HDTV Wonder).
And the new board would have USB 2, which would be an improvement over
the USB ports on my P4T-E. And it would have a few other neat features,
some of which I don't fully understand yet.

But apparently the new board will support only two IDE devices on one
cable. Can that be correct? That's what the manual I downloaded says,
I think. However, it looks like there are two IDE sockets. And the
manual says something about configuring SATA as standard IDE. So maybe
I could intall my three EIDE hard drives and one IDE DVD-R drive on the
new board just as I have them installed on my current board? Could I?
My 120 Gbyte and 250 Gbyte drives are both Western Digital and appear to
be ATA100. My Maxtor 40 Gbyte drive appears to be ATA133. I want these
drives to be in my new system. I need the space, and as best I can
tell, even if I bought three new Serial ATA drives, they couldn't hold
this much data.

I've never set up a RAID array. Hardly even know the principles behind
such a thing. Could I set up my current drives in a RAID array with
this new board?

I'm not an overclocker. So I worry that the P5AD2 has more capabilities
than I actually need.

That's about it. Those are the thoughts going through my head. Anybody
got any advice or words of caution? Thanks.

--
Bill Anderson

I am the Mighty Favog

snip

So I've been shopping and I've found (at Monarch Computer Systems) the
following:

Asus P5AD2 Premium Mbo for $269
Intel P4 Prescott 3.2 GHz 800 FSB processor with fan for $224
1 Gb Corsair DDR2 (667) PC-5400 RAM in two matched 512 Mb sticks for $365

And that totals $858.

Don't forget to add in a few hunder dollars worth of frustration when
dealing with Monarch.

If it all goes smooth, great, but if you got a problem expect to spend a few
months dealing with them in trying to resolve the issue. I ordered a bunch
of stuff from them back in August and I'm STILL waiting to get the order
completed. When you call them they will tell you anything just to get you
off the phone and then do whatever they feel like.

Avoid Monarch at all costs.

Paul wrote:

Thanks, Paul, and thanks to all the others who commented. Based on the
responses, I've decided NOT to "do this." Like an idiot I hadn't even
noticed that with the new mbo I'd even need a new video card. I'd been
planning to use my AGP card from ATI which lets me output to either or
both my monitor and my plasma screen TV which has monitor input (AIW
9600). If I were to buy the new mbo it would almost be like starting
all over with all new components. No thanks. I'll just forego Windows
Media Edition. I don't need it after all.

However, Paul, I'll keep thinking about your suggestion for a more
modest setup. I just might go that direction. You spent a lot of time
writing your response. I really do appreciate it.

--
Bill Anderson

I am the Mighty Favog

Paul wrote:
In article , Bill Anderson
wrote:



Conservative approach -
P4C800-E Deluxe $179
3.2C/FSB800/512KB ($249 with HSF)
2x512MB PC3200 DDR memory 3-3-3-8 or better 2x$96 (crucial.com)
Total = $620 for a 3.2Ghz system


OK, Paul, all this arrived today, exactly what you recommended, from
Newegg and Crucial. I shopped and checked and compared and
double-checked and I frankly I couldn't come up with a better plan.

So...if you hear back from me tonight, it worked! If you dont't hear
back from me, well ...


--
Bill Anderson

I am the Mighty Excited Favog

"Bill Anderson" wrote in message
...
Paul wrote:
In article , Bill Anderson
wrote:



Conservative approach -
P4C800-E Deluxe $179
3.2C/FSB800/512KB ($249 with HSF)
2x512MB PC3200 DDR memory 3-3-3-8 or better 2x$96 (crucial.com)
Total = $620 for a 3.2Ghz system


OK, Paul, all this arrived today, exactly what you recommended, from
Newegg and Crucial. I shopped and checked and compared and
double-checked and I frankly I couldn't come up with a better plan.

So...if you hear back from me tonight, it worked! If you dont't hear
back from me, well ...



Wow. That took quite a bit longer than I'd anticipated. The hardware is
fine as it turns out, though I didn't think so at first. But I've spent
about 12 hours just getting to the point that I can install WinXP and get on
the Internet.

I use a single physical drive with three partitions for my triple-boot
system. Win98 on C:, WinXP on E: and I use D: for experimenting with other
OS's like Linux and as it happens WinXP Media Edition recently. All my data
files are on two other physical drives -- all Ultra DMA IDE, no SATA drives.

Before I began putting the new system together I'd formatted C: and left it
empty, and I'd left WinXP Media Edition and WinXP SP2 in their respective
partitions untouched.

Well when I'd installed all my hardware and turned on the system, Win98
wouldn't even begin to load on C:. Win98 told me that there were no setup
files. And WinXP would begin to load, but then I'd get an error message
telling me that it had found "multiple disks that appeared as one disk, or a
raw disk." What did that mean?

Well, finally, after many hours of frustration playing with the BIOS and
rearranging cables and making this a master and that a slave and over and
over again, I booted with a trusty old WinME boot disk and ran FDISK (which
would not run from the Win98 or WinXP installation disks) and saw that my
drive and partitions were just fine -- just as I'd left them. And with the
WinME boot, I could see the setup program on the Win98 disk. So I just ran
it, and as Win98 began installing I got an error message about Drive D.
Win98 didn't like the partition that had WinXP Media Edition installed in
it. Something about LBA not being right.

So I just formatted the partition that had WinXP Media Edition in it and
voila -- the problems *seem* to have gone away. I still have two more
drives to install on the secondary IDE channel. We'll see how that goes.

But right now, with my system stripped of all unnecessary hardware, I've
successfully installed Win98 and WinXP.

Why am I typing all this? I'm so relieved I just had to tell somebody, I
guess.

Now back to work.

Bill Anderson

I am the Mighty Frustrated Favog