I upgraded my comp about a year ago, and since then I have gotten a new video card. I thought this would make a difference in the way it worked, but I noticed when i play any game that has moving stuff on it, it seems to work ok, but last night I was upstairs on a different comp, which is the same speed, but made by Intel, with only a 4 MB video card, and it is a lot faster. Could the power supply be my problem, mine is 230 volts, it is the original one from my 486 comp. I noticed the warranty sticker on it is dated 1996. I just changed the inside of the case without changing the case itself. Maybe there is something in the BIOS I have to change? I am stumped on this one, but I know that it should be going a lot faster than it does. My specs are in my signature.

How big of a PSU can i get? does it matter if it is too big?

Thanks for any help http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/smile.gif

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Gigabyte GA-5AA MB
AMD K6-2/550 Mhz
15GB hard drive
Rage Fury Pro 32 MB video
Linksys 10/100 NIC
196 MB RAM

[This message has been edited by bmpkns2 (edited 02-12-2002).]

The power supply isn't the answer. Each component will only use as much power as it needs - putting more "in reserve" won't help. Unless you're running maybe two hard drives, a cd-rom and a cd-rw, a zip drive and a floppy...

Possible answers:

Some BIOS's have a setting to enable AGP 2x (or 4x) mode. You may be running at AGP 1X.

A 550 mhz Intel chip is not a Pentium II, but rather a little newer technology. The K6-2/550 is PII equivalent, and has a smaller cache than a PIII or possibly even a Celeron (although I'm not positive on that)

Motherboard cache

Motherboard drivers

Display drivers

DirectX version/settings


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...
Some mistakes are too much fun to make only once.

[This message has been edited by pentachris (edited 02-12-2002).]

Ok. ty for the reply. My BIOS doesnt have a setting to enable AGP 2x, it has something called AGP graphics aperture, that is set at 64 MB. I changed it to a few different settings, and nothing seemed to make a difference at all.

The display drivers are the latest version, i checked on the ATI website.
I downloaded the directx 8.1 upgrade from Microsoft.

I guess the motherboard drivers are the right ones, I have never upgraded them, just bought it at a comp store and they installed it. I played around with the internal and external cache's, disabling them and enabling them, but no difference at all. The cache is 512KB, i read that on the ATI website.

All of these things didnt make a difference at all.

As far as overloading the PSU, I just have a sound card, NIC card, Rage Fury Pro video card, one HDD, cdrom, and floppy on it. I have tried all this other stuff, but nothing worked, so I thought maybe it was the PSU.

Could there be a BIOS setting I need to change, I am hoping someone out there has the same MB, so we can compare them, other than this, I have no idea.

thanks

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Gigabyte GA-5AA MB
AMD K6-2/550 Mhz
15GB hard drive
Rage Fury Pro 32 MB video
Linksys 10/100 NIC
128 MB RAM

A 550 mhz Intel chip is not a Pentium II, but rather a little newer technology. The K6-2/550 is PII equivalent, and has a smaller cache than a PIII or possibly even a Celeron (although I'm not positive on that)


You've said that the upstairs computer is "the same speed, but made by Intel." I assumed you meant the cpu speed was the same. What I was trying to point out in the above quote was that is that different cpu's running at the same speed are still different cpu's. Exaggerated analogy: a Datsun engine at 3000 rpm's isn't going to produce as much horsepower as a Ferrari engine at 3000 rpm's.

What Intel cpu does it have?

You can check out the latest motherboard drivers for your mobo's chipset here (http://www.ali.com.tw/eng/support/drivers/aladdin_5_driver.htm).

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Some mistakes are too much fun to make only once.

[This message has been edited by pentachris (edited 02-12-2002).]

Ok. I ran the belarc advisor on both computers, i found this on belarc.com. On the computer upstairs, it reads:

550 megahertz Pentium III processor
32K primary memory cache
512K secondary memory cache

On mine it reads:

550 megahertz AMD K6-2 w/3DNow!
16 kilobyte primary memory cache

and no secondary cache at all, but the motherboard book states it supports true 64K cache and DRAM access mode, and 512K Pipeline Burst Sync 2nd level cache.

this has got to be the problem, do you know how to fix it? the jumper settings on the mobo are correct, so i figure there has got to be something wrong on the bios settings.

My niece has the same motherboard but she has a 450 Mhz chip, and hers is just as fast as my comp upstairs, so this one should be too.

At my wit's end, thanks for any help.


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Gigabyte GA-5AA MB
AMD K6-2/550 Mhz
15GB hard drive
Rage Fury Pro 32 MB video
Linksys 10/100 NIC
128 MB RAM

Time to look through the BIOS settings and see if you can find one for enabling/disabling the cache settings...looks like they are currently disabled.

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mjc
Links list:Computer Links (http://www.dreamwater.org/tech/mjc/index.htm)

Celts are the men that heaven made mad, For all their battles are merry and their songs are all sad.

The internal, external cache, system bios cacheable, and video BIOS shadow are all enabled. When I went into BIOS settings, I read that there is:

Base memory 640 KB
Other memory 384 KB
Extended memory 191 MB
Total memory 192 MB

I wonder why this is not showing up on that diagnostic tool, I have run it on another comp, and that is exactly what that one should have, so I guess the tool is working right.

I went to your links link mjc, and on the AMD site it suggested to flash my bios. The date on my current BIOS when the computer starts up says 1996, so I guess this is a little out of date. But would that make a difference?

How would i do this? I am a little weary of changing this, because it warns that if you do the wrong thing, it could mess me up bigtime.

Thanks for your help http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/smile.gif

I went and got the BIOS wizard through one of your links, and it said under the DMI test that it failed, my current version is 2.0 and the minimum version is 2.1. Does upgrading the BIOS cost anything? This site will send me a packet if i order it, but I was wondering if there is a way to get it free. Probably not I guess, but if there is, that is my way to go.

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Gigabyte GA-5AA MB
AMD K6-2/550 Mhz
15GB hard drive
Rage Fury Pro 32 MB video
Linksys 10/100 NIC
128 MB RAM

[This message has been edited by bmpkns2 (edited 02-13-2002).]

Ok. I have been searching all day, and i am almost positive the problem is my secondary cache. It is on my motherboard, and on POST it shows that it is there, but after windows loads and I check it again, it is not there. Could there be something in Windows telling it to not see it? I doubt it, but then if I knew I would not be asking questions about it.

I am about to just go buy a new comp, and give this one to mom. I use it mostly for games, and that is what is affected by that secondary memory not working.

It is probably something really simple that has to be changed, but I have
no idea what it is. There is nothing at all in the config.sys file or autoexec.bat files, which should be normal.

I am wondering if upgrading the BIOS will make a difference at all, because it still wouldnt make it notice the secondary cache.

If there is a windows fix that will make a difference let me know. I bought Norton Systemworks 2002 and ran all the diagnostics on there, and it found a few problems, but didnt seem to speed up any either.

Thanks


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Gigabyte GA-5AA MB
AMD K6-2/550 Mhz
15GB hard drive
Rage Fury Pro 32 MB video
Linksys 10/100 NIC
128 MB RAM

I talked to my brother in law, he is a computer expert, I just found out , haha. He told me to just upgrade to windows 2000, so I am gonna do that this weekend, and hopefully be done with it. Thanks for ya'lls help, I really appreciate it, I learned a lot today.

A big shout out THANKS for making this forum, I would be fishing right now if I couldnt get this thing to work, and this site has got me through some pretty annoying times.

thanks again http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/smile.gif http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/smile.gif http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/smile.gif

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Gigabyte GA-5AA MB
AMD K6-2/550 Mhz
15GB hard drive
Rage Fury Pro 32 MB video
Linksys 10/100 NIC
128 MB RAM