I recently upgraded my system from: ASUS A7V266-E, XP2000+ Micron 512MB, PC2100 350W NVidia GeForce3 Ti500 64MB to the one listed in my signature below, and it's barely any faster! I first upgraded everthing but the video card and the computer actually scored lower on 3DMark2001 than before (from 8200 to about 7900). Now, the 3DMark2001 is about 9500, but I expected a much bigger performance hike than that. What's going on?? Please help me! I spent over $500 on this upgrade and have little to show for it so far! _X_X_X_X_X_[small]ASUS A7N8X-X, XP3000+ Crucial 1024MB, PC3200 Thermaltake 420W AOpen FX5900XT 128MB[/small]
LOLLOL My car won't start. Why? _X_X_X_X_X_[small]Bruce Wallace Vietnam Vet - 1970 - 1971 3.06 Ghz Intel P4 CPU Asus P4C800-E Deluxe Motherboard 1Gig Corsair 3200 LLPro DDR Ram Plextor PX 708A DVD Burner Sony CRX320E DVD 16x + CD-RW 52x24x52 Combo ATI Radeon 9700 Pro Video Card Audigy2 Platinum[/small]
Let me guess... You DIDN'T do a format / clean install with the new components, did you?? Your old M/B is based on a VIA KT266 chipset, and the new M/B is based on an nForce2 chipset: So.... The Northbridge, Southbridge etc are different. The MMU is different. etc. etc. Now this SHOULD NOT MATTER, but it does. Windows gets its knickers in a twist, the HAL gets mixed up, the Registry ends up with loads of extraneous entries, the boot process is contaminated with un-needed drivers (the old ones) being loaded (and subsequently not being unloaded properly because of the mixed-up HAL) etc. etc. How close am I?
Thanks for responding to this plea of help - I really appreciate it. You're right, I didn't do a format/clean install, but I did do a repair install of Windows XP. Otherwise, my computer wouldn't have even been able to boot into Windows, with all those new components. I'd rather not have to completely reformat & reinstall, especially since I only have one hard drive. Plus if I did that, wouldn't Microsoft block it or something, since you can only install Windows on one machine? And what's PIO? I've heard of DMA, but not that...
That's what we are here for (among other things LOL) Not the same thing at all... Even with a repair install, it will not be right, as the repair install is designed to REPAIR a windows install - it will not build a new HAL etc that is required. If you want the good performance that your component upgrades are capable of, then you will have to (unless of course you are low-level techie, but if you were you would not be in this situation) $500 on an upgrade and you DIDN'T get another drive???? A fallacy..... You can install many times. You have one machine with a few spare bits left over after an upgrade. [bold]PIO[/bold] is the old access method for ATA devices (hard-drives etc) whereby the CPU was responsible for all databus transfers. DMA is the newer, faster & more efficient method whereby dedicated support chip(s) on the M/B are responsible for the transfers, relieving the CPU of that task.
drchips is absolutely right. Since Windows 2000, NT based systems have been theoretically capable of installing new MB drivers (also known as the HAL or Hardware Abstract Layer) if you change MBs. In reality it rarely works 100% correctly and you're better off with a clean install.
Okay, okay. Fine. I'll get another hard drive. $80 at Newegg.com, and I'll be good to go. So if I install Win XP on my new hard drive, and set it up as the master (boot) drive, will I be able to run all my applications off the old drive still? Or will I have to reinstall everything on the new drive? Unfortunately, I think I know the answer - it seems to me that applications installed under XP on the old drive won't work because they would all be under the "old" windows registry.
