Super Duper (costly) Upgrade Time!

Post by **tandino** » July 10th, 2007, 14:21

I'm about to go into silent running mode any hour/day now to upgrade pretty much all my hardware. XP is getting a clean install too, good old corp edition... My main concern, however, is that I forget some crucial bit of software that's gonna be a nightmare to locate again.

Naturally I've pretty much got all my drivers in one place, plus my essentials (antivirus, anti spyware). Just concerned that I'll forget something and not be able to get hold of it again. The plan was to back up everything, but I went and left my blank DVDs at a mates, so it's an on the fly thing now.

Is there anything you folks always forget about that you can think of?

Post by **FatherJack** » July 10th, 2007, 14:23

Gigabit network card drivers.

Can't do fuck all without 'em, but once you have them you can get everything else you need.

Oh, and the F6 disk for installing XP if you have SATA disks or an array.

Post by **Dr. kitteny berk** » July 10th, 2007, 14:23

Only thing i usually bother with is mozbackup

because you can never get your bookmarks *just* right after a reinstall (also saves remembering passwords and extensions)

Post by **Dr. kitteny berk** » July 10th, 2007, 14:29

FatherJack wrote:Gigabit network card drivers.

Can't do fuck all without 'em, but once you have them you can get everything else you need.

Oh, and the F6 disk for installing XP if you have SATA disks or an array.

for those i generally do the http://driverpacks.net/ and http://www.nliteos.com/ thing, makes life a lot easier (but does need some testing etc)

Post by **tandino** » July 10th, 2007, 15:11

FatherJack wrote:Gigabit network card drivers.

Can't do fuck all without 'em, but once you have them you can get everything else you need.

Oh, and the F6 disk for installing XP if you have SATA disks or an array.

Think I'll have an issue with installing windows XP corp SP2 on a SATA disk then? Didn't realise those kind of rules applied. The drawback being I don't have a floppy drive...

Post by **Dr. kitteny berk** » July 10th, 2007, 15:17

I think most sata drives will just work with windows now, depends on the mobo and stuff though.

Usually the problems should appear with more complicated stuff, like RAID arrays, and weird/old mobos.

my windows cds always have sata driverpacks on (linked up there a bit

) means you rarely end up in the shite

Post by **tandino** » July 10th, 2007, 15:26

Right, I'm going in for this, my 5th system build - wish me luck.

/will see you in about an hour on a different computer when he fucks up

Post by **Dr. kitteny berk** » July 10th, 2007, 17:31

tandino wrote:Right, I'm going in for this, my 5th system build - wish me luck.

/will see you in about an hour on a different computer when he fucks
up

Hmm, 2 hours now.

Fuckup or success. Place your bets.

Post by **HereComesPete** » July 10th, 2007, 19:11

I'll put a shiny penny on him being fine, and if I lose my shiny penny to the gods of betting... meh!

Post by **deject** » July 10th, 2007, 20:08

I'll say it works, but he'll need no less than 4 tries to get it to boot.

Post by **tandino** » July 11th, 2007, 1:15

W00t lol rofl zomgar n00b!!11

I'm back, hardware wise - no problems at all. Fucking pleased with my super nice build.

Windows however... Only took 2 installs and now I'm sorted with the essentials. The major setback being that mozilla backup didn't fucking work...

Alas, I am here and off to bed...

Post by **Dr. kitteny berk** » July 11th, 2007, 1:24

tandino wrote:I'm back, hardware wise - no problems at all. Fucking pleased with my super nice build.

Woo!

Photos or it didn't happen

tandino wrote:The major setback being that mozilla backup didn't fucking work...

Very weird, i've never had a problem with it.

Post by **tandino** » July 11th, 2007, 1:28

Dr. kitteny berk wrote:
Very weird, i've never had a problem with it.

Seriously, not a single problem - only had to do some marginal fettling with the bios to change default GFX from PCI-E to AGP. Almost too simple...

Not sure why it didn't back up but it's no big deal. I'll just copy my bookmarks over from my old drive.

Code: Select all

CPU-Z 1.40 report file
Processor(s)	 
Number of processors	1
Number of cores	2 per processor
Number of threads	2 (max 2) per processor
Name	Intel Core 2 Duo E6600
Code Name	Conroe
Specification	Intel(R) Core(TM)2 CPU 6600 @ 2.40GHz
Package	Socket 775 LGA
Family/Model/Stepping	6.F.6
Extended Family/Model	6.F
Core Stepping	B2
Technology	65 nm
Core Speed	2306.1 MHz
Multiplier x Bus speed	9.0 x 256.2 MHz
Rated Bus speed	1024.9 MHz
Stock frequency	2400 MHz
Instruction sets	MMX, SSE, SSE2, SSE3, SSSE3, EM64T
L1 Data cache	2 x 32 KBytes, 8-way set associative, 64-byte line size
L1 Instruction cache	2 x 32 KBytes, 8-way set associative, 64-byte line size
L2 cache	4096 KBytes, 16-way set associative, 64-byte line size
Chipset & Memory	 
Northbridge	VIA PT880 Pro rev. 00
Southbridge	VIA VT8237A rev. 00
Graphic Interface	AGP
AGP Revision	3.0
AGP Transfer Rate	8x
AGP Side Band Addressing	supported, enabled
Memory Type	DDR2
Memory Size	2048 MBytes
Memory Frequency	256.2 MHz (1:1)
DRAM Interleave	4-way
CAS# Latency (tCL)	4.0 clocks
RAS# to CAS# (tRDC)	4 clocks
RAS# Precharge (tRP)	4 clocks
Cycle Time (tRAS)	12 clocks
Command Rate	2T
System	 
System Manufacturer	To Be Filled By O.E.M.
System Name	To Be Filled By O.E.M.
System S/N	To Be Filled By O.E.M.
Mainboard Vendor	 
Mainboard Model	4CoreDual-VSTA
BIOS Vendor	American Megatrends Inc.
BIOS Version	P1.70
BIOS Date	04/24/2007
Memory SPD	 
Module 1	DDR2, PC2-6400 (400 MHz), 1024 MBytes, Corsair
Module 2	DDR2, PC2-6400 (400 MHz), 1024 MBytes, Corsair
Software	 
Windows Version	Microsoft Windows XP Professional Service Pack 2 (Build 2600)
DirectX Version	9.0c

There we have it. Not gonna overclock her tonight - that can wait until tomorrow...

Post by **Dr. kitteny berk** » July 11th, 2007, 1:35

http://www.thecoolest.zerobrains.com/CoreTemp/ is very handy for temp checking for the first day or so.

Post by **tandino** » July 11th, 2007, 10:49

Ta mate, but I'm running <a href="http://www.almico.com/speedfan.php">speedfan</a> - been using for ages and it's never let me down. Very straightforward and unimposing too as well as having a near non existent footprint. Worth a look either way.

Post by **Dr. kitteny berk** » July 11th, 2007, 10:51

I like speedfan, but given I have no fans of importance, I like coretemp for this machine

Stoat · Post by **Stoat** » July 11th, 2007, 11:10

I don't think I've ever had a machine on which SpeedFan worked properly.
Either that, or I've never had a machine on which all my fans worked properly.

Post by **Dr. kitteny berk** » July 11th, 2007, 11:15

speedfan can be weird and picky.

which is why i suggest coretemp, it works on most recent CPUs, reads internal die temperatures (so reasonably accurate) and it doesn't do anything else.

Post by **FatherJack** » July 11th, 2007, 11:16

Stoat wrote:I don't think I've ever had a machine on which SpeedFan worked properly.
Either that, or I've never had a machine on which all my fans worked properly.

Me neither, but then I've always gone for the "too many fans" approach.

Post by **tandino** » July 11th, 2007, 11:42

I've never had any problems with speedfan, it's giving me accurate readings (as they match core temp's exactly). Also it's giving me a good reading of the ambient temperature of my case/motherboard/HDD and readouts of my voltages etc.

How many of you fuckers are overclocked? I know my system's up to it and I'm wondering if there's anything you swear by for all your OCing needs?