posted on August 2, 2001 04:09:30 PM
Okay, thanks Microbes... Given my very dusty house, I was really surprised when I opened up the tower to put in the memory. Hardly any dust in there, but I sucked up what there was with one of those battery powered vacs. They really saw me coming at Radio Shack...heh. Bought a handy-dandy anti-static wriststrap, too.
You should have heard the argument concerning the relative merits of vacuums vs compressed air. I bought both, of course.
posted on August 2, 2001 04:11:36 PM
Yeah, and wear faster too. That 'rpm' stuff is a transferal of automotive promo. Maybe one of the geniuses will come out with a gas pedal for your HD so you rev it up and down at stoplights.
posted on August 2, 2001 04:29:19 PM
Hi James, I have just had my computor upgraded yesterday.
The upgrade included a 20gig h/drive, 256 meg of RAM, new video card and sound card.
It's like trading in a worn out old car for a brand new Rolls!
Total cost, $385 AUD, about $200 USD.
Go for it, you'll be amazed. Programs are running as they should, effortlessly and being on cable I've got all the speed I need.
Good Luck.
Bob, Downunder but never down.
posted on August 2, 2001 04:53:51 PM
I was just thinking that not too long ago, everyone laughed at the thought of having a 5 gig hard drive....was it even a year ago?
posted on August 2, 2001 05:06:50 PM
There are people overclocking 800 MHz - 1 GHz machines. Kids? Yeah, or hardcore gamers, but in any event, I wouldn't dream of doing it to a machine I used for business. And if someone said to James "I know how to make your CPU chip run faster", I hope he doesn't let them fool with his machine.
posted on August 2, 2001 06:01:56 PM
There are two things that always bothered me about AMD microprocesors:
1) nothing is as compatible and trouble-free as an Intel microprocessor. Although lately, AMD has come a long ways to being almost exactly as compatible.
2) AMD always likes to over-clock their CPUs. THis is what really creates the heat and burns the life out of the unit much faster. Intel tends to under-clock its processors, giving them much more stability and reliablity. Having worked in that industry, I can tell you that it makes a difference in how much fun it is to use your computer.
And speed isn't everything when it comes to CPUs either. I'm doing just fine running a P-II/450Mhz. While the speed of the CPUs has increased dramatically, the software realm is always two to three years behind. That means tht even the best programs will still run on a minimum of a P-I/233Mhz system. All of my software runs terrific as-is.
The speed of the hard disk drive that you want to purchase is based upon your system that you want to put it into. For instance, when I last upgraded my system, CPU and Motherboard, I thought that I was getting a 100Mhz bus speed / 100DMA. Instead, I accidently got an older 66Mhz/DMA bus. So, when I purchased the 7200 RPM speed 40Gb hard rive I mentionearlier, my Bios would not see it at all! I ended up have to spend an additional $30 for a Promise 100 Disk Controller Card (SCSI) to make it work.
There are faster peeds out there - 9600 RPM hard rives. But that's way-too expensive for me and my needs. And getting a large hard drive like a 40Gb or an 80Gb or more, an older 5200 RPM is going to bog down your system and you'll end up less happy, even though the drives cost next to nothing these days (who wants one?)
posted on August 3, 2001 09:25:21 AM
Borillar, you put it so well. We are also running a PII 400 system, and there is no compelling reason to buy a faster one right now. We have 256mb ram, once we're done messing with the hard drives, we'll have 60 gig total on this system (2 - 30gig drives), 10 gig on my portable PIII 600, and 13 gigs on the kids K6 450 system. We've upgraded the video card to a 32mb nVidia, have a writable cd rom, and a 21" monitor.
For our needs, some gaming (hubby), simple word processing, the occasional spreadsheet, surfing the net (cable internet), scanning and digital photo editing, this system is fine. Yes, it could be "faster", and a new one would most likely have a DVD drive but our needs just don't justify spending $2000-$2500 for a new system. We wouldn't want a $700 bargain computer either. Hubby doesn't like integrated video and sound which is what you get on most bargain units. If we want to watch a DVD, we do it in the family room with the surround sound and big tv screen.
After the flakiness of the home built AMD K6 450 we put together for the kids, I don't think we would go with an AMD either. The first generation P4's are a dead end too. Those really looking to buy can get the biggest bang for their buck with the P III's. As for us, we're biding our time and waiting to see what is going to happen with the pc market.
posted on August 3, 2001 09:54:23 AM
Hi Meya! Thanks for the compliment.
You mentioned that you are running 256Mb of RAM right now. I wanted to tell you that if you are running Windows 98, don't add more than that to your system! That's what I did, bringing my total memory up to 640Mb of RAM and that's when I experienced critical system instability with Windows.
What happened as near as I can figure it out is that when Microsoft wrote Windows 98, it carried over the poorly performing memory manager of Windows 95 infamy. Back then, any system running 64Mb of RAM was a wow-whee system reserved only for those with a lavish life style. So Microsoft built Windows 98 around the idea that memory was never going to get much higher and created the system to utilize Virtual Memory instead of more RAM.
Virtual Memory writes the overflow of contents in memory to the hard drive and reads it back as system usage changes. This constant writing to the hard drive slows down performance, which is why manually adjusting Virtual Memory settings instead of letting Windows manage it will almost double your performance.
Anyway, with more memory and the drop in RAM prices, everyone seems to be happy to take advantage of the break. Windows 98 is then somehow forced to not use Virtual Memory as it is intended to and puts everything into RAM -- which it was not designed to do.
Windows 3.1/95/98 has an abysmally poor memory manager. One critically poor performer is that system memory -- RAM, gets fragmented, just like your hard drive does. Unfortunately, Windows 98 does not "defrag" memory, nor does it "re-sort" the memory making it more compact -- like Optimizing hard drives does for Norton users. So when you open a program, it loads into memory. When you close the program, pieces of it are left behind in memory. Eventually, system performance bogs down and if you use Windows 98 more than a few hours to work on, you are forced to re-boot due to memory locking up.
What I ended up doing was to change my operating system for Windows 2000 Professional. The memory manager in the NT series is excellent in comparison with the crippled home-user version of Windows. That's why I had to go buy a newer hard drive.
So remember : no more than 256Mb of system RAM if you run Windows 98!
posted on August 3, 2001 10:34:58 AM
We've no plans to add more ram...the system runs very well with 256 meg. We do keep it defragged as well.
I would say this sytem is rebooted on average of once every two days. Certain tasks, such as scanning alot or running large print jobs require a reboot sometimes. We also will reboot before burning a cd.
Right now my resources are at 60%, and I haven't rebooted since yesterday. We normally boot up to about 85%, sometimes 90% if all the junk is taken out of the startup in msconfig. Every stinkin program you install thinks it has to be in the startup. We shut it all off until something complains.
We just added this new hard drive and loaded Win98se after running Win95b 3 years and 2 months without a reformat. How did we do that? By building the kids their own system and making them leave ours alone! Seriously!
posted on August 5, 2001 02:44:49 PM
Oh, experts what is an "IDE hard drive"? Also, when purchasing a hard drive will I need a "Flat Cable for IDE Hard Drive"? I am considering getting a "Western Digital CAVIAR 80GB 3.5 inch EIDE Hard Drive" but it says "OEM VERSION - Drive Only". Based on what I've seen so far, this looks like the one to get -- but I'm lost.
Does this make sense to anyone? As you can see I have other areas of expertise. Thanks.
posted on August 5, 2001 03:16:06 PM
The 80 GB EIDE drive should work just fine as
long as the computer you are using is a fairly new pentium. Some older systems BIOS
won't run such a large capacity drive.
What is the exact model of Compaq you are using?.
If you are replacing your existing hard drive
you just use the existing "IDE Cable" that
the old drive is using. If you are adding
the 80 gig as a second drive you must first
look to see if the "flat cable" as you call it has a second unused connector on it. If
not you will need to get a cable that can handle two drives.(only a couple of dollars)
Then the fun really starts with master & slave jumpers etc., but more on that later.
posted on August 5, 2001 03:19:35 PM
If it helps, it is a Compaq Presario 5220. What I will need to do is transfer all my hard drive's data to the new drive. Thanks for walking me through this!
I just checked the compaq site; I hope this is helpful. It says that I have:
Four drive bays populated with:
120 MB/1.44 MB SuperDisk TM drive
Hard drive
CD-ROM drive
One external 3.5" or 5.25" drive bay open for expansion
I take it the last is where the new hard drive would go? Also, how can I find out if adding an 80 gb hard drive is too much?
[ edited by jamesoblivion on Aug 5, 2001 03:34 PM ]
posted on August 5, 2001 03:42:12 PM
You will need to have both drives up and running. With the new 80 gig as the slave
then copy all data from old to new.
So check that cable for the spare connector-
you will also need a spare power connector
for the new drive, this should already be inside the system. There are a couple of ways
to copy the data. You can use the "xcopy"
command or use somthing like Nortons Ghost
program that works A-OK.
There are plenty of details that I havent gone into like how to jumper the drives,fdisk & format the new drive etc.
Then remove your original drive and re-jumper
the new one as Master or cable select.
Confused yet?
posted on August 5, 2001 04:16:35 PM
Just got off the phone with "Compaq Support
Canada" Your 5220 is a AMD 380 MHZ with 64
meg. of ram. It was sold with a choice of hard drives between 4 & 19.2 gig.
It sounds like it should be able to handle
the new drive. They suggested downloading
the latest and greatest System Rom Flash
from ther web site(they are called softpaqs)
the one you need is SP12234 dated Nov.10/99
This will upgrade your computers Basic Brains
if you will.
Then your ready for the big guy.
posted on August 5, 2001 05:07:05 PM"Oh, experts what is an "IDE hard drive"? Also, when purchasing a hard drive will I need a "Flat Cable for IDE Hard Drive"? I am considering getting a "Western Digital CAVIAR 80GB 3.5 inch EIDE Hard Drive" but it says "OEM VERSION - Drive Only". Based on what I've seen so far, this looks like the one to get -- but I'm lost."
James, there are normally two different types of drive systems for PCs. The first and most common is IDE, or EIDE (Extended-IDE) and this means that data flows in single file (serial).
The second is SCSI (pronounced skuzzy) and data flows in parallel. SCSI systems are more expensive, but are faster at data transfers and hooking things up.
Both systems use a wide, flat cable to transfer data.
OEM stands for Origional Equiptment Manufacturer, and in the computer world of upgrades, it means that you are getting the device that you want completely without any frills. By 'frills', I mean you will not have a fancy, colorful package to rip open, there will not be any fancy games and other miscellaneous programs bundled with it -- it'll be just the drive, period.
The difference between Retail and OEM, then, is that Retail is what you see on a store shelf, in bright, colorful packages to atract your eyes to it and contains lots of goodies, namely games and extra software, to encourage you to purchase the package.
OEM equiptment is for those who build computers and sell them. This means anyone from Compaq and Dell right down to the guy in his garage. They do not need to pay out the extra bucks for that fancy packaging and do not need the extra costs of bundled software. All they want is the unit and any software drivers that might be necessary.
By upgrading with OEM products, you save $$BIG$$ bucks and sacrifice NOTHING as far as the product goes. It's the smart way to shop.
Buying OEM does have a small drawback -- if you buy a hard drive for instance when building a new computer and you need data cables to hook it upwith it, the OEM does not come with that sort of extras. This is important to remember when buying OEM CD-ROM players especially, as they usually do not come with a music cable to attach to your sound card!
posted on August 5, 2001 05:08:27 PM
Also, if you are replacing your curent hard drive or you are adding the hard drive onto your system, you already have the data cables in place.
posted on August 6, 2001 03:20:54 PM
Sorry james.....I can't take any of the credit for this. That was Mr. Kraftdinner - he's the computer geek!
He'll walk you through it when you get it. (He thought this board was silly, until he saw your post james. He was up early this morning checking to see if you'd written back )
posted on August 6, 2001 04:58:36 PMartsupplies, you asked, "with OEM you don't get a manufacturer's warranty"
That's not true at all of the OEM stores that I shop at (I *NEVER* shop Retail stores for computer stuff!)
Typically, the vendor is actually a wholesaler to the public and offers a typical one-year warrenty through them. That means, for the first year, they will swap the part for you with no questions asked. But this does not invalidate the Manufacturer's warrantee! After the first year, you just go through the manufacturer's support setup.
I've never owned a store-built retail computer and I've built hundreds of them for customers over the years, all from OEM parts. I've never had a warranty problem yet.
If you live in a decent sized city and you want to see who sells OEM computer parts locally, don't look in the telephone book as those folks usually only sell in mass quantities. Go find where you can get free local newspapers, usually at your local public library. If your town isn't large enough to support a free computer rag magazine, just look in the Nickle and Dime advertisements. Some of my best deals came from someone selling out of their garage.
posted on August 6, 2001 05:03:23 PM"Thank you very much Kraftdinner, and thank you Borillar."
You're welcome, James. When you do get your hard drive and you need to set it up properly, just start another thread. Or, you can e-mail me directly [email protected] and ask anything that you like and I can help you out.
Given my very dusty house, I was really surprised when I opened up the tower to put in the memory. Hardly any dust in there, but I sucked up what there was with one of those battery powered vacs. They really saw me coming at Radio Shack...heh. Bought a handy-dandy anti-static wriststrap, too.
