My new Computer! Yay!

[pc_builder]

I finished building my new computer. Had to skimp on a couple things since I'm low on cash. Using the integrated video and sound. Only 128 MB of RAM.

But otherwise I couldn't be happier. It's the fastest computer I've ever owned (be prepared to laugh).

733MHz Pentium III
Liteon TR100 Motherboard
40GB Seagate HDD
8GB Seagate HDD
Integrated Intel 815E Graphics
some kind of AC '97 audio codec chip thingy
Windows 2000
Samsung CDRW/DVD ROM Combo drive

 

[Inkara1]

Integrated video and sound isn't too bad for what most people would use it for... but as soon as you run into a little more cash, get more RAM. That's the single biggest thing you cna do to help. 128MB sucks, especially with shared video memory.

 

[Kawaii]

Can you really run 2000 smoothly with only 128 ram?

 

[Leslie]

I did it

 

[Shadowfax]

i ran it on a P1 166 with 32MB of RAM...but i can't say it ran very smooth

 

[catocom]

That's not a bad setup.
Yeah 2000 uses less ram, and cpu than ME, or XP. (on fresh setup)
The ram really isn't too bad there if your HD is 7200rpm.
Like inky said I'd up it to atleast 256 though.
But if your hd is only 5400rpm, I'd jump that up first.
Is that a coppermine(socket 370) type cpu, or like a slot 1?

733 isn't bad. I ran a 667-PIII for a long time. I still have it, and am
actually looking for a cheap mobo to run it again. I just upgraded it a week
or so ago to a PIII-1.0gig that I traded for.

 

[pc_builder]

Yeah, socket 370. Coppermine I believe. Supposedly the mobo is also Tualatin compatible.

Inky, you're right about the video memory. I've already run into problems running a couple of games. The display settings options tell me my video chip has 4mb of video memory. I don't know if that's actual or shared with the system.

But so far Windows is running smoothly. The first two things I am going to do are buy UATA cables for my drives. And the maximum RAM my machine can hold. 512MB. I have a 512MB stick, but the mobo is only compatible with single sticks up to 256MB.

I bet performance would really pick up with Ultra ATA cables right now. I have regular ide cables so everything is only running at UDMA 33 I think. The motherboard, HDD's, and CDRW drive are all supposed to be Ultra ATA 100 compatible. So I really need to get those cables.

 

[pc_builder]

Then.... After doing those two things, I'm going to get a better video card.

 

[Inkara1]

Inky, you're right about the video memory. I've already run into problems running a couple of games. The display settings options tell me my video chip has 4mb of video memory. I don't know if that's actual or shared with the system.

Shared with the system. You can up how much video memory you want in the BIOS.

 

[pc_builder]

Shared with the system. You can up how much video memory you want in the BIOS.

No, I just went through every menu in the BIOS, and there wasn't anything about the size of the video memory. Then I checked intel's website, and found out that I can't change it. Although, when the system requests more video memory, something called DVMT (Dynamic Video Memory Technology) gives it from the system memory. But that isn't much. According to their chart, the maximum allocatable is 10MB. So at most, I can have like 14MB of video memory?

I guess the swap file has to be used after that. I really need a new card. I was very happy with my old system. It has an agp card that has 32MB of memory built into it. I would put that in my new system, except that I promised that computer to my brother (and I don't want that card anyway, it has a weird bug)

I want to buy a card with at least 128MB of memory built into it. But that's a little ways off. At least I can watch a DVD flawlessly with the memory I have now.

 

[Gato_Solo]

Gee...Most people watch DVD's on their Televisions...

 

[pc_builder]

I watch DVD's on my TV, too. Why wouldn't I watch them on my 61 inch big screen?

I just wanted to have the ability to play a DVD on my computer. Also so I could access the pc only features.

I was disappointed when my old computer would crash every time I tried to play a DVD.

 

[chcr]

Two words: hardware decoding. I used to watch DVDs on a pentium 233 with a Hollywood Plus decoder. No freezes.

 

[pc_builder]

Two words: hardware decoding. I used to watch DVDs on a pentium 233 with a Hollywood Plus decoder. No freezes.

There's just something wrong with my other system. Some kind of bug or corrupted files. The card in my old machine has hardware decoding. But oh well.

 

[Inkara1]

I used to have a Creative dxr3 card. But it started to make the picture flicker when I wasn't watching a DVD with it (worked fine when I was watching a DVD though), so I took out the card and bought a regular DVD player. Of course, now that I have a much faster system (I had a 400MHz K6-2 at the time) I could probably do software decoding... but I need to find the right driver for my DVD drive. I've got some DVd playing software on here, but it doesn't work yet.

 

[Luis G]

DVD drives need no drivers, just make sure that windows has DMA enabled on it and you're most likely done. What model the drive is and which software/version are you using?

 

[sam_fisher]

not bad...
i run a red hat 8 server with mysql on a system similar to that. it hosts a million records or so..

rock on