Yet Another Component I'm Lusting After

Yshania · Post by **Yshania** » Sun Apr 28, 2002 4:35 pm

Bah!!

Mr Sleep · Post by **Mr Sleep** » Sun Apr 28, 2002 4:48 pm

Originally posted by Yshania
Bah!!

Foiled again?

It was worth a try from your end though

If anyone has money burning a hole in their pocket that they want to throw at me for a Jukebox 2 (also known as Nomad) then throw it

Nippy · Post by **Nippy** » Mon Apr 29, 2002 12:38 am

Originally posted by Mr Flibble

1466MHz. Looks like a good deal too.

Thanks Mr Flibble, you are the font of all knowledge on the tech support forum!

When I grab enough money (this summer is going to be feverpitch working as a lifeguard for extra money

) I will buy my new PC and scream to the high heavens as my machine runs Giants without lagging!

(It didn't lag before, just load times took ages!

)

Nippy · Post by **Nippy** » Mon Apr 29, 2002 12:43 am

Originally posted by Mr Sleep
Well i am lusting after the new Creative Mp3 player, oh how i want, i already have a JB2, but i just can't resist the new one.....it is lovely

Is that the one that looks like a large CD player? If so, my mates got one. It does kick ass.

Whats worse though, is that he got it for free or next to nothing!

Needless to say, I did want to give him a sack beating.

Mr Sleep · Post by **Mr Sleep** » Mon Apr 29, 2002 4:05 am

Originally posted by Nippy

Is that the one that looks like a large CD player? If so, my mates got one. It does kick ass. Whats worse though, is that he got it for free or next to nothing!

Needless to say, I did want to give him a sack beating.

The JB2 looks like CD player, but they haven't released the third one yet too my knowledge....it will only be a matter of time

They kick ass but one has to pay for that ass kicking

Here is the DAP 3 (JB 3) for your viewing and drooling pleasure http://uk.europe.creative.com/products/product.asp?prod=318

Kameleon · Post by **Kameleon** » Mon Apr 29, 2002 9:46 am

Those MP3 players are really nice...why buy a 64MB player when you can have 10GB???

One component I'm really lusting after is this...

*play opening bars from 2001:A Space Odyssey theme*

*assorted gorillas stare up in amazement*

What a beast...*drools*

Mr Sleep · Post by **Mr Sleep** » Mon Apr 29, 2002 2:27 pm

Originally posted by Kameleon
Those MP3 players are really nice...why buy a 64MB player when you can have 10GB???

You obviously don't appreciate how big my CD collection is

What a beast...*drools*

Hmm a charcoal case, oh it is making me pine

Kameleon · Post by **Kameleon** » Wed May 08, 2002 1:53 pm

Originally posted by Mr Sleep
You obviously don't appreciate how big my CD collection is

Oh I do, I think you misunderstood my original statement

I meant that it seems a waste to spend £100-£200 on a 64 or 128MB player when you can save up for a little longer and get something with [lots] times the room...seems stupid to me

Mr Sleep · Post by **Mr Sleep** » Wed May 08, 2002 3:40 pm

Originally posted by Kameleon
Oh I do, I think you misunderstood my original statement I meant that it seems a waste to spend £100-£200 on a 64 or 128MB player when you can save up for a little longer and get something with [lots] times the room...seems stupid to me

Ahh excuse my faux pa, i agree, it is the same with all technology i think

thantor3 · Post by **thantor3** » Tue May 21, 2002 12:25 am

I think all of you need to start drinking heavily...

That being said, I'm seriously considering buying either an Alienware Aurora DDR or a ViciousPC Phantom. I have two questions:
1) Does anyone have any knowledge about any performance differences between the ASUS A7N266-C NVIDIA nForce motherboard and the MSI K7N415-Pro nVidia nForce 415D. I have an ASUS K7M currently and I was underwhelmed with their customer suppport.
2) Any opinions on Alienware vs ViciousPC as far as the reputation of the two companies?

Thanks.

Mr Sleep · Post by **Mr Sleep** » Tue May 21, 2002 3:26 am

Originally posted by thantor3
1) Does anyone have any knowledge about any performance differences between the ASUS A7N266-C NVIDIA nForce motherboard and the MSI K7N415-Pro nVidia nForce 415D. I have an ASUS K7M currently and I was underwhelmed with their customer suppport.

Be careful what VIA chipset you purchase, one of them can cause a random loss of data, i will try to find the links during my lunch hour

Mr Flibble · Post by **Mr Flibble** » Tue May 21, 2002 4:29 am

You might want to read this article from Tom's Hardware regarding the nForce boards. It's more to do with the 420 instead of the 415D, but should provide some useful info.
I hate to say it, but they're getting a bit old now and there's a lot of new chipsets coming out that seriously outperform it. With DDR333 and DDR400 memory specifications coming into the mainstream systems, the nForce chipset is getting a bit dated (even though it's only about a year old). The plus side is that it's an all-in-one solution, so the cost of the motherboard, and in turn the whole system is a lot less than the latest and greatest.

@Mr Sleep, which of the VIA chipsets do you know of that can cause this sort of thing?. I haven't had any problems with them here in NZ. Yet.

Mr Sleep · Post by **Mr Sleep** » Tue May 21, 2002 5:54 am

Originally posted by Mr Flibble
@Mr Sleep, which of the VIA chipsets do you know of that can cause this sort of thing?. I haven't had any problems with them here in NZ. Yet.

I have had a few problems that were sorted by their 4in1 driver set, check out this i can't find the best article that refers to this problem

Out of the article:

The VIA 686B Southbridge
High PCI-traffic due to the use of sound-, tv-, videocapturing-cards or NICs, causes data loss on the VIA 686B southbridge which is used with the VIA KT133A/KT133 chipset. The problem will occur especially on computers using a Creative Labs Soundblaster Live! soundcard. When the CPU waits for 3 busmaster requests until it accesses the bus itself a buffer might overflow and data will be lost. VIA offers a patch that will allow the CPU to wait only for 2 requests preventing the overflow and data loss. This patch might affect audio- and videostreams which will have dropouts due to the minimized bandwith. Since the IDE-controller of the 686B is affected by the data loss it is a serious problem. It is rumoured that a new revision of the chipset has been released to fix the problem.

The VIA's KT133A Northbridge
If your northbridge is affected and you are using an AMD Athlon-C CPU (with 133/266MHz frontsidebus) the mainboard will hang while performing a warmstart. Only 20% of the chips with the productcode 1EA0 or 1EA4 will cause this problem. If you have the problem set your frontsidebus to 100/200MHz. When the problem is gone you most likely proved your northbrige to be buggy. To solve the issue set the I/O voltage from 3.3 to 3.45 volts. Contact the mainboard manufacturer - you might get the board replaced.

I know that i had my computer crashing and losing data, i applied the 4in1 and it worked fine

thantor3 · Post by **thantor3** » Tue May 21, 2002 9:07 am

@ Mr. Sleep and Mr. Flibble (have the two of you considered going into showbusiness?

): Thanks for the information. Are there any motherboards you would recommend?

Quark · Post by **Quark** » Tue May 21, 2002 9:28 am

Aha! Well, here's the motherboard that I'd love to have:
Abit AT7 (part of their "MAX") series. It's not for everyone, because there's no parallel/serial/ps2 ports, but the things a beuty. 6 USB ports (1.1 and 2.0), Firewire, integrated ethernet and 5.1 sound (which they say sounds as good as SB Live). 2 ATA-133 channels, 4!!! ATA-133 RAID channels. That's 12 possible drives you can have (or 6 on seperate channels!). You can use RAID 0, 1, or 0+1.

If you can handle not having the legacy ports (which is not hard if you're using mainly new components), the only other pitfall is that it's limited to 3 PCI slots. Not a big deal either, though, since 2 devices many people use in those slots (sound and ethernet) are already on board.

*I definately wish I could afford putting money into this board*.

Mr Sleep · Post by **Mr Sleep** » Tue May 21, 2002 11:11 am

Originally posted by thantor3
@ Mr. Sleep and Mr. Flibble (have the two of you considered going into showbusiness? ): Thanks for the information. Are there any motherboards you would recommend?

We would be like Smashy and Nicey (ask Ysh

)

I have heard good things about ABit in general, Gigabyte are also fairly decent.

Me personally i have a Soltek SL-DRV2, it was fairly easy to configure and has been fairly stable (after 4in1 driver updates) i have never had it crash due to over-heating. This however is old technology.

I heard rumours that they are changing the main architectures for motherboards in general. I wonder if it might be worth waiting around a bit to see what happens

You might want to check out:

THG

Anandtech

HighLordDave · Post by **HighLordDave** » Tue May 21, 2002 11:15 am

@Mr Sleep:
I have a Soyo SY-7VCA2 motherboard which uses the VIA 694X/686B chipset. I have installed the 4in1 driver set, so I should be okay with whatever data loss you were talking about, right? Since I built this machine (about two years ago), it has been very stable and I haven't had any problems with it.

Mr Sleep · Post by **Mr Sleep** » Tue May 21, 2002 11:36 am

Originally posted by HighLordDave
@Mr Sleep:
I have a Soyo SY-7VCA2 motherboard which uses the VIA 694X/686B chipset. I have installed the 4in1 driver set, so I should be okay with whatever data loss you were talking about, right? Since I built this machine (about two years ago), it has been very stable and I haven't had any problems with it.

The problem was a pretty random event and if you have the newest 4 in 1 drivers from Via Arena then you shouldn't have any problems. I don't think your motherboard had any problems anyway, the chipset seems to be a different model

BTW did you get he PM?

HighLordDave · Post by **HighLordDave** » Tue May 21, 2002 12:01 pm

Thanks, Mr Sleep. I did some research beforehand and couldn't find any known issues with the board before I bought it and I just didn't want to be hit by some defect that I hadn't heard about . . . although if I had a motherboard sporting a chipset with known issues, I'd have an excuse to get a new one . . .

I got you last PM, but I've been in and out of the office today and haven't had a chance to reply. I'll probably be sending you an email reply, not PM.

Mr Sleep · Post by **Mr Sleep** » Tue May 21, 2002 1:02 pm

Originally posted by HighLordDave
Thanks, Mr Sleep. I did some research beforehand and couldn't find any known issues with the board before I bought it and I just didn't want to be hit by some defect that I hadn't heard about . . . although if I had a motherboard sporting a chipset with known issues, I'd have an excuse to get a new one . . .

I only found out about mine on the Creative DAP forum, it was a good thing because i was tearing my hair out wondering what my problem was, found the 4in1's no more problems. Would you be upgrading to AlienWare?

Got you last PM, but I've been in and out of the office today and haven't had a chance to reply. I'll probably be sending you an email reply, not PM.

No problem