Re:

[n/a]

Haven't had enough time to give a detailed critique, but it works. It came Saturday during the OU-K-State game, which put it on the back-burner till OU held on. We had friends here for the weekend, then my mom-in-law and 4-year-old great-niece showed up to spend the week, so I've had to grab time when I can.



Though ALL the disks and most of the manuals were supposed to be included, they weren't. It wasn't packed like we discussed, either -- just bubble wrap around the CPU, everything else jammed in, no packing peanuts. I had to reseat a couple of cards and tighten some bracket screws, blow out the dust, clean the fans, etc. No manual or disks for the wintv card, which isn't even installed. Could have been worse with a used machine, but still irritating.



The case is better than I expected, very heavy-duty and roomy, with screwless access--the front panel unlatches at the bottom, both sides slide out easily. Three empty 5 1/4 bays, one empty 3 1/2. The power supply is rated at 250 watts.

The hard drive is a little chirpy but the three fans are surprisingly quiet. The MB is running plenty cool.  



Win98se and the basic audio and video drivers were all that was installed, just enough to boot to Windows. It was partitioned with two drives, one 20 gig and one ten gig. Spent most of my free time Saturday switching out my old monitor, keyboard and mouse and trying to install the plug and play Viking external modem, which wasn't recognized. Found a conflict with the partially-installed (?)plug and play network card, which when uninstalled left a bunch of .vxd files missing. Sorted that mess out into the wee hours--ended up uninstalling DUN, then deleting the .vxd files from the registry. Now the modem is working fine, even connecting a bit faster than my U.S. Robotics internal.



Sunday I installed Opera, ZoneAlarm and NAV and played Soldier of Fortune and a couple of other games enough to be impressed by the video capabilites and speed. Haven't got the Sidewinder gamepad working, but I haven't spent much time with it.  



Yesterday I began installing and configuring the other motherboard, audio and video utilities from the included disks and managed to double-install something which kept Windows from loading. Ouch. Ended up in safe mode uninstalling most of what I had installed until Windows decided to load. Didn't have the nerves left to try re-installing or installing anything else, but everything is now stable.



With no major apps loaded it's hard to judge performance, but what is installed opens a lot quicker than my loaded-down 333. Should have another 256 megs of RAM from Crucial by the end of the week. Probably won't have time to shop for a CD-RW until next week. I also want to set up a network with the Q, but I'll need another network card first. Advice on networking? Advice on setting up a webcam (no paperwork)?



I haven't run any benchmarks yet, and probably won't until I add the RAM. I'll know more after I get more installed, but it seems to be a solid machine. Tonight I'll run a thorough scan disk to make sure the hard drive is okay.



Any suggestions on what I should check on or test would be appreciated.









http://www.poasters.com/images/bear.gif" border=0>

[n/a]

Just installed the 256 meg of Crucial RAM. Ordered Sunday for $33.29, delivered today, shipping free. Is Crucial great or what.



http://www.poasters.com/images/bear.gif" border=0>

[n/a]

I've finally had a chance this week to get serious with the new computer. First, I decided to reformat and do a clean install of Windows98SE from a factory disk. That made a huge difference -- I suspect the previous version of Win98 was installed from the burned copy that was included in the deal. Whatever, it was clunky and subject to conflicts and crashes. Drove me nuts.



I also partitioned the hard drive using Scuzzy's famous FDISK instructions, so now I have four drives of (roughly) 2 1/2 gig, 15 gig, 10 gig and 2 1/2 gig. I'll use the smaller drives for the OS and Drive Image backup respectively. After the 8 gig on the old Q, I feel like I have room to burn.



Speaking of which, I also added a 16x10x40 Lite-On CD-RW with Nero Burning 5.0 (85 bucks including shipping from NewEgg). Zippity-do-da -- 3 1/2 minutes to burn The Best of The Doobie Brothers. Nero is amazing software, and the Lite-On is the best combination of performance and value I could find. Very satisfied.



Today I finished setting up a network between the T-bird and the Q. It was very much trial and error, but it's working. I went cheap, with $15 Linksys 10/100 Ethernet cards (the Asante card in the new one came without a driver, and their site is useless) and a ten-foot crossover cable for $12.99. That's it. I just installed Opera with Java in less than a minute from my old download on the Q. I'll save a lot of time not having to re-download or copy to disk before I can install on the new machine. Cool.



So I'm still under $600 for the system and I have pretty much what I want.











http://www.poasters.com/images/bear.gif" border=0>

[Joanie]

Yo Bear,



I have a new 16x10x40 CDRW and it takes a lot longer than 3 1/2 minutes to burn a new copy. Is the Nero software better than Creative? I guess it is much better if it burns that fast. Is the Lite version something you can get off the Internet?



Glad you are having so much success with the new computer.



RahRah



http://www.poasters.com/images/rahrahsm.gif  " border=0>

[n/a]

RahRah, Lite-On is the brand of CD-RW. The user reviews I read before buying were nearly unanimous in praising it. It came with the full version of Nero Burning software, but no mounting hardware, hard-copy manual or box--just a fold-out sheet of very basic installation instructions in about a dozen languages.



3 1/2 minutes was the actual burn time, not including the time it took to copy the CD image to the hard drive, which was several more minutes. The spin-up time is rated a little slow compared to the high-dollar 16x machines, but otherwise it compares favorably and includes Burn Proof technology. I haven't gotten my nerve up to try 'on the fly' burning directly from the CD.



My only experience with other software is limited, a few tries with my wife's EZ-CD Creator 4, which doesn't have the wizard and takes a little more figuring out to use. Nero also comes with InCD, packet writing software that allows you to use your CD-RW disk like a large floppy disk. Haven't played with that yet.



Who knows, maybe somebody will send you a copy of Nero for Christmas, or even Halloween.



http://www.poasters.com/images/bear.gif" border=0>

[Joanie]

Hey Bear,



What a nice Bear you are. I will be checking my mailbox carefully around Halloween or Christmas.



You and the Kitty Kat will have lots of comparison reporting to do with your new AMD's and I for one will be looking forward to an honest evaluation. My daughter has been using the AMD for years and claims there is nothning better out there.



RahRah



http://www.poasters.com/images/rahrahsm.gif  " border=0>

[scuzzy]

So, Bear, what's up with the new computer? Did you get your money's worth? Does it "look" decent? Does it work well? Fast? So-so?



I'm hoping to find some time later this afternoon to start ordering parts. I already have a few items in mind to start building. I'll poast more on it later.



http://www.poasters.com/images/scuzzy.gif" border=0>

Alex Garcia