primetime3wise

i may show up for an hour or two just to see what's up, though i have a bday party to go to. i hardly game anymore. kevin

thought i'd share this with you guys... http://www.microsoft.com//windowsxp/myster...rp/default.mspx just click the pic on right hand side of the usb drive (valuable info/get yours) answers to the questions they ask are: 2, true, true, true fill out shipping info. and you're good to go. enjoy, kevin

hrmm, well if that's so i may return my SATA harddrive and just use IDE...my benchmark 05 scores were the same with both drives...around 4000, i thought having a SATA hd would make a big difference. well i repaired my XP install and added a few drivers during bootup (pressing f6). only diff now is that there are diff channel names under ata/atapi devices in device manager. well i guess the next step is to add RAM :/ i have an ati x800gt 256ram & 1 gig of system ram what's frustrting though is that hitahci sent no info/instructions with the SATA drive, just drive thx for the help Bob kev

for ex to see problems i'm having: http://www.neoseeker.com/Hardware/faqs/kb/15,24.html looks like i have to reinstall OS after the drive is recognized properly with the newer drivers kev

it does show in disk management...i knew that already as I already installed the OS...win xp and software on the drive. but it doesn't show any serial ATA controllers in device manager, just parallel ata and adma, no ! either. gonna go to nvidia webiste. kev

I just installed a brand new HD...hitachi 80gb serial-ata II 300Gb/sec. I need to know what I have to do in order to get it working correctly as I think win XP is reading it as an IDE drive. In the BIOS it is installed/config'd correctly but not in the OS, the driver is from 2001 that it is currently using as S-ATA II drives wern't around then. Do I have to install it from the Win XP setup CD, after I boot from CD to install the OS, when it asks for you to press F6 if you have any 3rd party drivers to be installed? I hope it doesn't mean I have to reconfig/reinstall the OS itself and any other software I added. i'm gonna try manually adding it right now through Add/remove hw and see if XP SP2 has the drivers added, or any other updates. thx, kev

oh and a question...is 500w of power really necessary? as jay suggested?

i got mobo similiar to what jay posted, better video card (256 mb ram) same model, and 1 gig of ram. pisses me off though that it won't get here in time for lan party

what about this one, seems like a steal for the price.... http://www.monarchcomputer.com/Merchant2/m...pricewatch&NR=1

sorry, sold.

yea, the more i thought about it, I figured I won't get the x2, maybe just a little better cpu than jay listed in the other forum. i'll spend more on ram and a better video card, as they are almost, if not equally, important. the cpu will be socket 939 so it's easily upgradeable. thx for the input bob, kevin

I have more money that I expected to have to spend on my next system (too bad, eh?). anyway, what's ppl's opinions on maybe dropping the extra $$$ to go with a amd64 x2 chip vs. amd64? both are socket 939 so I could upgrade down the line, or just drop the cash now. There are some pretty nice deals on pricewatch for mobo/cpu/ram combos. I just don't know if the price difference is worth it. I'll def. be picking up a nice pci-e video card, like I said, dunno if I should splurge on a chip, specifically an amd64 x2 3800. kevin

thx guys, ya nem is correct as far as already having some parts kev

I MAY (hopefully) sell my old PC to friend of mine and my father's...our auto mechanic, heh. He's been good to me over the years, alot of times not charging me for labor, though that is often because he barters with my father who is his attorney. Point being I will give him a good price on my old PC. Here are the rough specs and pricing I did off of pricewatch. does this look about right? mini-atx case=$27 mini-atx board biostar m7vig 400 rev 7.1 sempron 2200 (2)256MB pc2700 DDR RAM onboard video =$155, because of extra memory, based this on pricewatch combos CD-ROM/DVD-ROM 16x/CD-RW combo drive, approx $30 40gb HD maxtor 5200 rpm= $40 floppy=$7 ethernet nic=$5 power supply=$20 total=approx. $284

I haven't kept up much with the newer hardware, so I need some help. I need ideas and suggestions for building a good gaming machine within the $400-$500 range. Of course I use it for surfing, downloading music, video, mild application use, but these are negligable as I could just pickup a p3 for $100 if I didn't game. I have a sweet 19-inch LCD with DVI-I support, so a sweet video card of course :/ pricewatch, tigerdirect, and others for the parts...what'd you guys think about ebay? Nemesis reminded me to make sure there are warranties if I do the ebay thing. thanks for any help you guys can give, kevin