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#31
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O.T. Computer Cleaning Maintenance:
On Wed, 8 Jul 2015 11:49:34 -0700 (PDT), Mark Twain
wrote: As I understand it, Linux based systems are pretty much virus/malware free like Mac computers so its not a compatible comparison. Not true. Neither Linux not Macintosh computers are malware free. Because both have fewer users, and malware writers target the most popular systems, there may be a somewhat lower risk of infection. But in both cases, the risk is far from zero |
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#32
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O.T. Computer Cleaning Maintenance:
I read all the good information given and went
with the 6200 video card and have ordered it. Since I never had a direct video card fan before this should work ok. I did see the fan on your video card by the way. Is this why some cool their system by water and oil? To keep them cool versus fans? Thanks, Robert |
#33
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O.T. Computer Cleaning Maintenance:
I stand corrected Ken
Thanks, Robert |
#34
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O.T. Computer Cleaning Maintenance:
I just saw that the 6200 is for 64bit
so does that mean I just bought the wrong card for the 8200? http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814130635 Robert |
#35
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O.T. Computer Cleaning Maintenance:
Mark Twain wrote:
I just saw that the 6200 is for 64bit so does that mean I just bought the wrong card for the 8200? http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814130635 Robert The 64-bit in this case, refers to the connection between video card RAM and GPU. There is a 16 bit connection from each RAM chip (RAM data bus) to the GPU. That 6200 card has four RAM chips on it. +-----------------------------------+ | | | RAM RAM RAM RAM | | Chip#1 Chip#2 Chip#3 Chip#4 | | | | | | | | | | / / | | | \ / / | | +----------GPU--------+ | | | +-----------------------------------+ For fanbois this is a measure of how "powerful" the card is. A high end card is "384", while weak cards are "64". The number of data bits in the bus, times the bus frequency, gives "raw bandwidth" for the GPU to look up stuff. The faster the connection to RAM, the faster the GPU can do texture related stuff for gaming. And fortunately, it has no effect on whether the OS is 32 bit or 64 bit. Either kind of OS is sufficient. All it takes is drivers to make the card work well. The card will work fine. Carry on :-) Paul |
#36
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O.T. Computer Cleaning Maintenance:
Understood,
I'll let you know when I have it installed. In the meantime is there anything I can or should do? Robert |
#37
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O.T. Computer Cleaning Maintenance:
Once we get the 8200 up and running again
would you recommend upgrading the RAM? If so, could you make a suggestion/links? I remember putting in two RAM chips in a long time ago and I believe I'm at 50% max at present but would like to max it out as much as possible. Maybe replace the other two with (4) 'better' ones or if there's no difference then just (2) new ones. Thoughts/suggestions? Thanks, Robert |
#38
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O.T. Computer Cleaning Maintenance:
I went through my pictures of the 8200
to locate the card and to see if there would be any problems before installation. After seeing your fan setup it looks like there's a fan on the lower card which has the yellow plug (stereo). http://i58.tinypic.com/10x4r9k.jpg http://i57.tinypic.com/30t6ziu.jpg http://i62.tinypic.com/2aenihg.jpg Robert |
#39
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O.T. Computer Cleaning Maintenance:
Mark Twain wrote:
Once we get the 8200 up and running again would you recommend upgrading the RAM? If so, could you make a suggestion/links? I remember putting in two RAM chips in a long time ago and I believe I'm at 50% max at present but would like to max it out as much as possible. Maybe replace the other two with (4) 'better' ones or if there's no difference then just (2) new ones. Thoughts/suggestions? Thanks, Robert I don't know what the price runs for that stuff now. As for useful RAM, 512MB is a big tight for WinXP. You can run maybe three applications at once, with a little luck. Depending on the vintage of web browser used though, 512MB doesn't go too far there. I would think 1GB would be "enough" RAM under normal circumstances. I used to play 3D games with that much. Whereas 512MB was just a bit too tight for that to work. There are two types of RAMBUS RAM. And one of them was weird, in that the memory chips are in a serial chain. And when the chain of chips gets to a certain magic length, you can't have any more. That equates to 16 chips on one DIMM and 8 chips on the other, for a total of 24 chips. Something like this. Channel0 Channel1 | | Double-sided Double-sided 16 chip DIMM 16 chip DIMM | | Single-sided Single-sided 8 chip DIMM 8 chip DIMM There is also a deal about something called a CRIMM. There must be "continuity" in the chain of chips. If you have two slots occupied out of four slots, the remaining two slots get funny looking PCB cards, and they just wire the serial bus connections through the slot. You want to save those cards, in case they are ever needed again. The other kind of RAMBUS ram, is a "32 bit module" or something. Apparently, the chain of chips in that case, is entirely contained on one module. So no continuity is required. I don't think there is a chain limit either. The DIMMs get "hot spots". When you access the memory in the 8200, a single chip draws up to 4 watts. If you hammer the same memory location over and over again, just the one chip is doing all the work, and the other chips are relatively quiet. As a result of this funny behavior, the heat spreaders on the memory modules are *riveted* into place. The metal on the outside of the DIMM (over top of the chips), is an essential part of heatsinking them. The metal surface helps spread the heat. Normal memory patterns don't "focus" on one chip for too long, so if you're web surfing, the module is relatively uniformly heated. But with enough care in a lab experiment, you can make a "hot spot" on it. So the rivets are there, to prevent you from removing the cooling solution, and allowing a single chip to overheat. Regular DIMM technologies, all the memory chips are exactly as warm as their neighbor, and they all do equal amounts of work. The entire module might average 2W, compared to a RAMBUS chip going to 4W worst case. And that's why you'll find the memory in the 8500, might not even have a metal cooling surface on it. I probably have equal numbers of DIMMs here, with metal coolers, and ones without, as the metal cooler really isn't required. But on the RAMBUS stuff, yes, it's a requirement. Anyway, before you get carried away, check what is in there already. If you go to Control Panels, and use the System control panel, down at the bottom it may mention how much memory it thinks is present at the moment. You could have an 850 Northbridge or an 850E Northbridge, and I think the RAM type is different on the respective motherboards. There may have been two different motherboards for the 8200, so I have to couch my advice with respect to not being sure what you've got. And yes, picking RAM for RAMBUS boards is "loads of fun" :-) But I bet you suspected that already. There was one guy on the net who knew this product inside out, but he's no longer available to answer questions. Paul |
#40
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O.T. Computer Cleaning Maintenance:
Mark Twain wrote:
I went through my pictures of the 8200 to locate the card and to see if there would be any problems before installation. After seeing your fan setup it looks like there's a fan on the lower card which has the yellow plug (stereo). http://i58.tinypic.com/10x4r9k.jpg http://i57.tinypic.com/30t6ziu.jpg http://i62.tinypic.com/2aenihg.jpg Robert Cards from top to bottom: 1) Video card 2) Sound card with joystick point (15 pin DSUB, 4 audio) 3) Winmodem ? I see an audio cable running from this card, to what could be Aux on the sound card. 4) NIC card 5) Empty slot Your machine uses a kind of bus extension - riser card, and slots 4 and 5 are on the lower PCB assembly. I don't think that has special properties in this case, but that is purely a guess on my part. Some riser cards have bus select issues. If I was working on the machine, I would probably have to use a horizontal airflow, rather than blowing air onto the "face" of the card. You could move the sound card down to slot five, but I expect Windows would want you to reinstall the sound card driver package if you did that. It may not be clever enough to "just work" if you move it. Moving the sound card down to slot 5, would be for the purpose of making more room for a video card cooling solution. 1) Video card --- Could blow air in this direction 2) --- if the card needs cooling... 3) Winmodem ? I see an audio cable running from this card, to what could be Aux on the sound card. 4) NIC card 5) Sound card with joystick point (15 pin DSUB, 4 audio) ******* And you don't need to move anything, for your very first test. It'll be OK to just run the new video card in slot one, while you check for a BIOS screen. To evaluate how much cooling the card needs, you can use GPU-Z and get a temperature reading off the card when it arrives. That's assuming Windows starts OK. Normally, you would remove the old video card driver, install the new video card, then install the new video card driver. (Remember to unplug the computer, before physically inserting the new card.) But doing a clean driver operation won't be possible in this case, so it'll just be a "hope for the best" installation. You have to install a video card driver, to get the screen to work at full resolution (bigger than 640x480 or 800x600 resolution). This is GPU-Z. The "Sensor" tab at the top of the dialog box, will show the video card temperature. If it hits 90C, that's too hot for comfort (doesn't leave any room for gaming or 3D operations). A convection cooled card could easily hit 65C, and that would be fine. If it was 90C, then I'd be planning my cooling project :-) http://www.techpowerup.com/downloads/SysInfo/GPU-Z/ TechPowerUp GPU-Z v0.8.4 Jun 25, 2015 1.7 MB You can try clicking this link, and see if it gives you a file. I don't know if you can hot-link to this or not. If this link doesn't work, use the other link and "navigate" to the download. While this link looks like it might work, I can't be sure. http://www.techpowerup.com/downloads...start?server=6 HTH, Paul |
#41
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O.T. Computer Cleaning Maintenance:
From what you say I'm good to go as is. So
no need to mess with the RAM. I should have explained the pictures were not recent. The 5th slot is where I just installed the PCI card with the (4) USB ports so it's not available. Since the previous video card worked there's no reason why this shouldn't although I understand you reasoning for cooling it as much as possible. If there's a real need for cooling after downloading Techpowerup (the bottom link worked), I suppose I could remove the Sound Card (I can always put it back)since I don't have any speakers connected (I used them for the 8500) and I could put a blank plate in place. Can I just disconnect the wires and leave them or will this affect the NIC card's performance? Robert |
#42
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O.T. Computer Cleaning Maintenance:
Mark Twain wrote:
From what you say I'm good to go as is. So no need to mess with the RAM. I should have explained the pictures were not recent. The 5th slot is where I just installed the PCI card with the (4) USB ports so it's not available. Since the previous video card worked there's no reason why this shouldn't although I understand you reasoning for cooling it as much as possible. If there's a real need for cooling after downloading Techpowerup (the bottom link worked), I suppose I could remove the Sound Card (I can always put it back)since I don't have any speakers connected (I used them for the 8500) and I could put a blank plate in place. Can I just disconnect the wires and leave them or will this affect the NIC card's performance? Robert To me, one of the cards looks like a dialup modem. Do you still use dialup networking ? Maybe that card could be removed and the sound card could stay. Or, you could remove both the dialup modem and the sound card. The NIC, USB2, and video, are pretty valuable. I like having the sound, just for alert sounds. The dialup modem, there aren't many opportunities to use those any more. There is still a FreeNet dialup here, but it's not free :-) It's like $30 a year or so. Paul |
#43
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O.T. Computer Cleaning Maintenance:
I use Ethernet, and installed a new card a
few years ago when I was on malwarebytes forum. I didn't even think of the dial-up card. That's the third card down that looks like it has a fan (modem) on it. I could remove both the sound and dial-up cards to improve performance but I have only (1) cover tab for the back. I suppose I could make something up. If I do remove both just unplug the wires and maybe label them and zip tie them together? I can still keep the cards and re-install later if I need to. However will this affect the NIC card? In passing, I found these while looking around and have (2) of each. http://i61.tinypic.com/2rw43t3.jpg http://i61.tinypic.com/b3lkeb.jpg Thanks, Robert |
#44
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O.T. Computer Cleaning Maintenance:
Mark Twain wrote:
I use Ethernet, and installed a new card a few years ago when I was on malwarebytes forum. I didn't even think of the dial-up card. That's the third card down that looks like it has a fan (modem) on it. I could remove both the sound and dial-up cards to improve performance but I have only (1) cover tab for the back. I suppose I could make something up. If I do remove both just unplug the wires and maybe label them and zip tie them together? I can still keep the cards and re-install later if I need to. However will this affect the NIC card? In passing, I found these while looking around and have (2) of each. http://i61.tinypic.com/2rw43t3.jpg http://i61.tinypic.com/b3lkeb.jpg Thanks, Robert Regarding the cards, removing them remains an option, if you need room for a cooling solution. You can make up labels for the wires, as appropriate, so you can put everything back if need be. I like to put cards in antistatic bags, at least until taking them to a recycler. I keep the bags then, because I can use them for holding more junk (safely). The NIC should not be affected by adjacent card changes. It and the USB card should still work. Leaving one slot cover open shouldn't hurt anything. You can always cut up some thin cardboard, and make a cover if you want (just for airflow). Depending on how the fans are set up, there is even a possibility that the main fan could pull cool air through the open slot cover, and give a "draft" blowing over the video card :-) The main thing to watch on slot covers, is make sure they're not shorting to anything on the motherboard end. Any time I look in there, it always looks deceptively close... ******* Your statement about what's in your junk pile, tells you that "something better is now inside the computer". Those two 128MB modules and two CRIMM (continuity) cards, would have been the original stuff from the machine. Since four items were removed, that means you have four modules already in the computer. The slots are full. Since you tossed 128MB modules, that means the modules in the computer are likely to be at least 256MB. So you might already have 256MB * 4 for all I know, or 1GB of RAM. Which is a good amount for WinXP. There's several things that might require more RAM. 1) Photoshop. You can never have enough RAM or fast scratch storage for Photoshop. 2) Virtual Machines (running more than one OS on the computer). That's why I have more RAM on this computer. Today, I was running two VMs at the same time. And 3GB of RAM is enough to do that. 3) 3D games. Some like a bit more RAM than 1GB can provide. And you can measure whether the RAM on the 8200 is adequate, by using Task Manager (the control-alt-delete thing). The Commit Charge (Peak) value, collected after a whole day of usage, gives some idea of the peak amount of RAM used during that time period. For example, my "Peak" value reads 1.7GB at the moment, and so if I only had 1GB of physical memory present, that means 0.7GB of left-overs were stored in the Pagefile (slow). So based on that single measurement, I know I could use at least 2GB of physical RAM, so when the daytime peak occurs, it all fits into DIMMs, and none goes into the Pagefile. The Pagefile is on the hard drive, and it chugs pretty slowly. (The 4KB-sized operations the OS does, don't help matters, and that's why it is slow. It takes a gazillion commands to the hard drive, to work with any significant portion of the Pagefile.) I have a suspicion the max config for your machine, might be 1.5GB. That would be 2x512MB and 2x256MB. With the 256MB ones being selected because of the chain length limit for the chips. If you already have 4x256MB, I doubt it would make a noticeable improvement to change two modules to the 512MB size, and they might also be expensive (as they would be in more demand than the 128MB RIMMs). It's a wonder Ebay sellers don't just throw their 128MB RIMMs in the garbage, because nobody really wants them. Everyone wants the big modules, so expect a significant "distortion" to the pricing of such things. I remember at work, back when memory came in less-wide modules, someone at work had a drawer full of modules that had been replaced with higher capacity ones. And he couldn't find anyone willing to take them. So they sat in his drawer. Probably hundreds of them. So some modules are effectively "obsolete", because using them doesn't give you enough RAM to run an OS. They really shouldn't have put 128MB modules in the machine when it was originally sold. They should have used 256MB ones. WinXP with 256MB of RAM, it would probably boot, but it wouldn't be a lot of fun. Paul |
#45
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O.T. Computer Cleaning Maintenance:
On Wed, 8 Jul 2015 18:01:58 -0700 (PDT), Mark Twain
wrote: I stand corrected Ken Thanks, You're welcome. Glad to help. |
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