The Official PC building thread - 4th Edition

Yeah I saw an NZXT Phantom in the flesh. It seems like a solid case, though as is often the case with them lately, the styling isn't really to my tastes.
Russ:

AGP 1x, 2x: 3.3V
AGP 2 (4x): 1.5V
AGP 3 (8x): 0.8V

 

Finally found the 4th ed. was wondering why the 3rd didn't work anymore.

 

Sam,
I know the standards, but it has to be a 2x-4x, not a 4x-8x. I bought an XFX Nvidia 5200 4x-8x AGP card for the 420, back in 04, after Newegg guaranteed that they would refund the purchase if it didn't work. I even faxed them a copy of the AGP spec page from the Service manual, and he said it would work. It smoked the card, and then they balked about giving me a refund, but I finally got it.
I think I've found the right one though!
http://dunifer.net/store/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=1&products_id=4

Thanks for the info,
Russ

 

Looks exactly like my card russ

 

According to specification tables, there were numerous cards that supported all AGP speeds, from 1x at 3.3V up to 8x at 0.8V. I haven't owned one myself, as most AGP cards were only 4x/8x compatible (having two large sections instead of 3 small ones) but I'm sure they exist, and your card looks like one of them.

 

She made it Format complete, and I'm gonna bench real soon

 

Lol at the PC name
Drives D,E,G and V had better all be virtual


Also, here's the rather dire situation for me with storage right now



Edit: just noticed most of the shares aren't activated so it doesn't show the numbers, brb I'll fix that

Ok fixed.

 

Drive V is virtual. I had to dissconnect My real BD drive, to free up a sata port for my beloved 2 Tb drive. Should probably get a sata card...
I get goofy with my PC names sometimes. My secondary was simply logical though. (BD machine).
WOW! You've got some serious Storage! Or rather lack there of

 

Sam,
Did you happen to notice that it specifically says that the slot has to be a 2x-4x?

Sam,
Therein, lies the problem! Motherboard slots with both 3.3 V and 1.5 V keys do not exist. The Dell 420 has a 3.3v slot, and is keyed for it. While some AGP cards can be installed that can cover all three voltages, putting an ordinary 4x-8x card in them, will smoke the card. There's about 10 different slots for AGP, and even a special PCI slot that ECS used to make, that would allow you to install an AGP card in them. It seems that when the AGP standards were set, some manufacturers did not adhere to them.

Apple computer was one of those, which forced customers to pay extra for an Apple compatible card, much like their serial printer ports. If it wasn't Apple compatible, it wouldn't work. That's why older Apple computers did not have a Parallel port! Video card and printer manufacturers had to pay apple in order to use their Patented ports! What's that old saying? There's no honor among thieves! LOL!! The same thing applied to a new mouse or keyboard. It had to be Apple compatible, or poof went your mouse or keyboard.

Even HP and Compaq had their own modems that would not work on other computers. Even today if you buy a Compaq Internet Keyboard, the software will not work on anything but a compatible Compaq computer. It used to be that if you needed a new modem, Keyboard mouse or Optical drive, it wouldn't install unless it was Compaq compatible, which meant that you had to buy it from them, as Compaq didn't license them. I've only come across one of them, and it gave me an error message that "AN COMPAQ COMPATIBLE OPTICAL DRIVE WAS NOT FOUND", when you tried to install one. On the first Compaq I ever saw, the first 486 to come out. all the components had to be purchased from Compaq. You couldn't even install a new HDD or Floppy disk, unless you bought it from Compaq! Thank God times have changed! LOL!!

Russ

 

An ordinary 4x/8x card can't be used in a 1x/2x slot, so that would explain why the card went up in smoke.
First-generation AGP is virgin territory for me though, as when that was about, the system I used was only PCI and ISA. As soon as I got an AGP system it used an 8x slot. That was back when I could get one set of PC components to last me 5 years

As for the proprietary days, it sounds simpler, but a lot more expensive!

 

Well, hopefully a six-pack of WD20EARS drives will be on its way in the near-future. Doesn't quite give me full redundancy, Horizon will still have to run solo, but everything else will be backed up nicely. Horizon's the newest, but also the most advanced drive. It is also the only modern era drive (Caviar Green instead of WD GreenPower) that has the load cycle issue. However given its youth, I'm hoping that presents no issues.
Aphelion, Corona, Frontier and Vector are the most recent acquisitions, but actually the oldest drive, with manufacture dates Nov-07 (x3) and Feb-08 (x1), and their previous owner ran them 24/7 since new with the load cycle bug, so they're at around 400,000+ load cycles, with a lifetime rating of 300,000, so those are the first to be backed up.

 

6 pack eh. I can't see buying that many at this time, but one day, I can see owning that many. So far, the drive is rock solid.
Here's a quick little comparison. It should be noted that the Velociraptor is around 70% capacity, and would be lagging at least slightly on this test


Here's the second test I did on the veloci, before it was nearly full to the keel LOL!

 

Yup! When I bought my first Dot Matrix Printer, a Panasonic 24 Pin, the PC model retailed for $149. The Apple was $199. Serial cable for the Apple versions were 2 to 3 times as much for the Apple. Most of that stuff never went on sale either!

The AGP slot on the 420 was 4x, so it was 2x-4x. Like I said, there was about 10 different varieties of AGP slot depending on the brand, and most of them did not conform to the standard.

Hooray! Both my motherboards have been shipped. My old 790X was shipped back to Gigabyte TW for evaluation, as Gigabyte USA has never seen this problem before. It tests good electrically, but it doesn't work. They know that there's a short in the 2x4 pin ATX circuit, but they have no idea where or why. The CPU, Memory and PSU are all good. I've seen this problem before with other brand motherboards, but I always replaced the board, as all were several years old. I'm convinced that the Power problem had nothing to do with it, because the Main is always shut off when the computer is not in use. Just a habit that I've developed over the years.

The 785G had a blown VRM, something that can happen to any motherboard. They shipped a new one! Who knows, both may be here Monday.

Russ

 

Something interesting everyone may like to hear. I was sitting at my mothers windows 7 machine last night, and noticed that her windows 7 machine was acknowledging her XP machines printer. See, they both share the network switch. Now while XP does not even KNOW what homegroup is, it seems to be acknowledging some rudimentary information. E.g. shared folders, and shared printers. I have not installed the network printer driver yet, but since file sharing seems to be enabled(where I thought that was impossible), printer sharing may indeed be possible. Perhaps I missed the point where microsoft relinquished their grasp on this? Have I been misinformed and this has always been possible?
In any case, this is good news for mother!

 

Shared printers work across all platforms without anything needing to be enabled, I think.

 

Well...shows what I know LOL!

 

Contrary to what I read from a reviewer on newegg, my WD20Ears does not appear to idle. Since I have that option shut off in my windows 7 power scheme I was afraid that the drives firmware may have overwrote that setting somehow. I really don't like my drives idling. I use them too frequently to have to wait 2-5 whopping seconds each time I and or windows query's the drive/s. I'll know for certain when I have more archives on the drive. E.g. folders within folders. Or simply archives that have not been indexed yet

 

They do idle, but a different kind. They don't spin down the platters, they unload the heads. Cuts power down to about 3.5W versus a normal 7200's 8W, but allows instant resume (a matter of a few miliseconds). It's this head load/unload that creates high load cycles.
The problem is a lot of WD Green drives have a noisy signal to the load/unload operation, so they load/unload every few seconds.

 

As far as you know, the unloading of heads doesn't cause wear and tear does it? I still can't get over the 3yr warranty vs 5yr warranty of the black drives. I get the feeling WD knows they won't last as long. Is this silly?

 

It does cause wear and tear, but while retail drives are rated for 300,000 load cycles, the RAID edition drives are rated for 1,000,000 cycles, and they're the same drive underneath, just the RAID ones are more stringently tested - thus, you'd be unlucky to get a retail edition drive fail before a million load cycles. 24/7 usage with this bug for more than 2 years has not yet reached 500,000 load cycles, so you should be pretty safe if your drives are set to spool down after long periods, if your system is powered off overnight, or if you plan to replace the drives in 3 years or earlier, or any combination of these.

WD's 5 year warranty on the black drives is not really industry standard. It is simply another selling point of the Black drives over blue/greens, to get people to spend more. It's not really indicative of the quality of the cheaper offerings.