More on Vista

Quiche81 · Post by **Quiche81** » Sat Feb 09, 2008 3:09 pm

I'm upgrading soon, Twin Nvid's (Sli), 4Gb Ram, Sata2 in Raid0 to basically
run games, which my PC's have always been built to do..

Thing on my mind though is Vista, it seems a logical thing to do but its not SP1'd yet and
im wondering on peoples opinions who are using it ?

Is it Stable, fairly safe from hackers, but more importantly does it run our games, Doom3, Quake4, Half Life2, BioShock etc.

Cheers
Leif.....

Post by **SubCat001** » Sat Feb 09, 2008 3:52 pm

I ran it for a 2-3 months on my old A64 setup. Unfortunately it just wasnt as snappy as XP and offered no real advantage. So on my new C2D setup I've gone back to XP for the time being. It didnt seem to have any issues with games, though both me and a friend found it very picky about network adapters, as well as other hardware.
Perhaps with a little streamlining it could work well enough, and now i have a DX10 card i might try a dual boot.

Rover220CoupeTurbo · Post by **Rover220CoupeTurbo** » Sat Feb 09, 2008 5:41 pm

Quiche81 wrote:I'm upgrading soon, Twin Nvid's (Sli), 4Gb Ram, Sata2 in Raid0 to basically
run games, which my PC's have always been built to do..

Thing on my mind though is Vista, it seems a logical thing to do but its not SP1'd yet and
im wondering on peoples opinions who are using it ?

Is it Stable, fairly safe from hackers, but more importantly does it run our games, Doom3, Quake4, Half Life2, BioShock etc.

Cheers
Leif.....

Ive been using Vista for a while now and the only problem I have had is compataility with an old scanner.

Vista is supposed to be more secure, and SP1 is being rolled out now to be released in March.

Shouldnt be any problems.

Quiche81 · Post by **Quiche81** » Sun Feb 24, 2008 11:19 pm

Ok, Had Vista Premium on my PC for a few weeks and im having nothing but
crashes and restarts.

Brand new everything, 2x SataII (Raid0), 4Gb Ram, 2xPCI-E (Sli link) 2core AMD 6400+
all out the box so i dont doubt the system, i've tried pulling one of the RAM sticks, swapping
them, pulling one card, swapping them etc. but nowt makes any difference and im almost
at the point of pulling out my hair (Whats left of it)

Anyone any suggestions or maybe a copy / link to the new SP1 update ?

for infor my bluescreens vary, i've noted the most popular two

System_Service_Exception
PFN_list_corrupt

mike50001 · Post by **mike50001** » Mon Feb 25, 2008 12:50 am

an getting onto the net is a nightmare.

on my computer youtubes been lost all wknd, an half of ebay.

im just not connected to the net when it looks for them.

wonder if my laptop will work with xp, anyone know? advent k4000

Phoenix3dfx225 · Post by **Phoenix3dfx225** » Mon Feb 25, 2008 1:09 am

4gb of ram is what i am running and vista is great do you have winxp 64 or do you even have a 64bit cpu (im assuming u do as most are now).

So straight away 64 enviroment will help, but yep when first installed vista will use over 1gb of ram just to use messenger but tweak it alittle and disable services not required and you can get the usage down to a senible level.

as for games compatibility everythign works fine, if not better than xp cos remember dx 10 is vista only so new games on new gfx cards will have that advantage

Quiche81 · Post by **Quiche81** » Mon Feb 25, 2008 1:12 am

Running Vista 64Bit on a duel Core AMD 6400+ A 64Bit processor, im geared for
speed with gaming in mind, its just soooo clunky though. Im hating Vista and am on the
verge of putting my Xp Pro back on !

Rover220CoupeTurbo · Post by **Rover220CoupeTurbo** » Mon Feb 25, 2008 1:51 am

Quiche81 wrote:Running Vista 64Bit on a duel Core AMD 6400+ A 64Bit processor, im geared for
speed with gaming in mind, its just soooo clunky though. Im hating Vista and am on the
verge of putting my Xp Pro back on !

I take it you are using 2 x 2gb? Have you tried different RAM?

GeraintUk · Post by **GeraintUk** » Mon Feb 25, 2008 1:56 am

as has been mentioned.....

to address 4gb, you need the 64bit OS version.
Given that choice of XP64 or Vista 64 bit editions, i'd take Vista.

Along with DX10 support (and you did mentioned twin SLI setup, so DX support is important to get the best out of them).

I have been running Vista Business 32bit on 2 laptops.
Vista Ultimate 32bit on a clone Media Centre PC I built, and now running Vista Ultimate 64bit on my games rig

I have never had a BSOD on any of them, and after a few tweeks to get rid of the "mummy security" of Vista asking me time and time again if I really want to do something, i'm very happy overall with the systems.

Cheers

g

mike50001 · Post by **mike50001** » Mon Feb 25, 2008 4:27 am

sounds like its just the normal vista home versions that are crap.

vistas finally found enough of the net to let me post this.

its still lost ebay and youtube, an various other sites.

anyone wants a free laptop stand outside the window its going that way soon

Null_Byte · Post by **Null_Byte** » Mon Feb 25, 2008 9:37 am

Downgrade to xp - everybody else is doing it. Vista is a lemon IMHO, my money is that the next release will be much better.

-Alex- · Post by **-Alex-** » Mon Feb 25, 2008 12:17 pm

This is the real problem with Vista - everyone's experiences are very different.

For the record I have been running Vista32 Home Premium since about 2 days after the launch on a C2D E6600 with 2GB DDR2/800 XMS Dominators.
I must say that DirectX10 aside, I have never had a crash/hang or even a moment when I thought "has it gone?" The DX10 problems have been solved with ATi drivers which aren't actually made of dust/fluff.

Others have completely different experiences; from not being able to install correctly in the first place, to random hangs/crashes all over the shop.
Not what you want for a successor to XP which in general (after much updating and plenty of patching) was pretty good. I can say that it absolutely crucified my previous rig though, which was well above the min specs.

SP1 due out soon, but SP1RC1 doesn't show vast improvements for me - but I didn't have any problems to rectify

Phoenix3dfx225 · Post by **Phoenix3dfx225** » Mon Feb 25, 2008 1:40 pm

best performance setting I have always found when building pc's is to put a enough ram in the system so when the user is running the programs or games they have enough ram to disable virtual memory. Virtual memory is just such a slow down as it has to access the hdd. Disable it completely!

Quiche81 · Post by **Quiche81** » Mon Feb 25, 2008 9:40 pm

Im running the 64Bit software version of Vista Premium. Its just sooooo twitchy though.

Im just so not enjoying this Windows experience !

Post by **SubCat001** » Mon Feb 25, 2008 11:12 pm

I cant say Vista ever crashed for me, yes lots of hardware and network issues, and this has been a noticible trend amongst other vista users. To me it sounds like there is another issue maybe hardware/driver related. Under what circumstances does it crash?

I might try a dual boot on my current setup, as it would be nice to try out DX10. Though I will probably wait until SP1.

Quiche81 · Post by **Quiche81** » Mon Feb 25, 2008 11:24 pm

Totally Random, earlier for example i was typing away a post and up popped 'Internet Explorer has stopped responding'
and it needed to close yadda yadda yadda, and close it did !!

A while later, was playing HL2, and HL2 stopped responding and had to close for no obvious reason.

Had one BSOD with no description other than Hex numbers...

Pooooooooooooooooooooooo is my thoughts at the moment

-Alex- · Post by **-Alex-** » Mon Feb 25, 2008 11:26 pm

What is your PSU spec buddy?
Do these happen a while after booting (have you monitored temps?)
Are they G92 Nvidia boards? Does the mobo support SLi and your particular brand/type of RAM (some are very twitchy indeed, mine included)

I guess no overclocking being used.

Would you say you have more BSOD's than application errors? When you next see an application error click details and see if it lists a module/appname responsible. Grasping at straws pretty much unfortunately

Post by **SubCat001** » Tue Feb 26, 2008 5:06 pm

I would consider trying a clean install and see if you get the same errors.

What is the spec of your machine?

Quiche81 · Post by **Quiche81** » Tue Feb 26, 2008 5:19 pm

Spec is as follows.

2x SATAII 250Gb Hard drives, these are configured in RAID0

1x AMD Duel Core 6400+

1x ASUS M2N-E SLI (PCI-E Sli mobo 2x16 PCI-E ports) MOBO

2x GeForce 8500GT 1Gb Sli cards (Poo i know, just needed something to get me started for a couple of months)
#Cards are Bridged together, Bios told to use PCI-E and software set to run SLI mode.#

2x 2Gb Memory sticks (4Gb Total)

Windows Vista Home Premuim (64Bit version)

PSU is a Gold 550W unit.

All drivers are upto date as per Nvidia and ASUS, All the latest patches from MS are in, other
than SP1 obviously.

This install is only a few weeks old and its been playing up from day one.

Everything is brand new and out the box, im running temp software and fan speed monitoring
and nothing gets that warm. I have probably an even amount of BSODS Vs Application stops, the
application stops are strange though, the application will be quiet happy, it wont hang, the App not responding
box just pops up and closes the program?!

Post by **SubCat001** » Tue Feb 26, 2008 7:41 pm

I know there has been issues with Nvidia drivers under vista64, though that may have been resolved. Maybe try a single card?

I know this might sound silly but have tried checking all the cables? Particularly the sata ones? The amount of times I've had problems that have baffled me that have turned out to be little more than a faulty cable or connection. Also worth measuring the voltage on the rails.

Ben Cole · Post by **Ben Cole** » Tue Feb 26, 2008 10:22 pm

Installed Vista HP on my media pc because of the included Media Centre.

Not taxing but I love the way it works.

My laptop triple boots Vista HP, XP Pro and Ubuntu.

I love Vista. I only use XP for MS Money and a few other bits and bobs. I'm still really just trying out Ubuntu. It is amazing for a free OS.

I don't play games but I haven't a single real complaint about Vista. In fact when I use XP for general media viewing I find it clunky and unpleasant.

Quiche81 · Post by **Quiche81** » Wed Feb 27, 2008 12:42 am

Cheers guys, i'll get my fluke out and check voltages, i've got a spare PSU just incase, i've just
closed all BHO's as apparently these can cause problems somehow

Will see how i get on.... (keeps fingers crossed)

Post by **SubCat001** » Wed Feb 27, 2008 12:44 pm

Have you run mems test by the way?

Yeah worth checking the PSU, as my mates tagen had one of the rails fail and one drop.

Tom™ · Post by **Tom™** » Thu Feb 28, 2008 11:37 am

Quiche81 wrote:Running Vista 64Bit on a duel Core AMD 6400+ A 64Bit processor, im geared for speed with gaming in mind...

dual core, not duel.. anyway.. not to come across as a troll.. but if you wanted a computer that was "geared for speed with gaming in mind" why did you get an AMD chip? the core 2 duo would have made a better purchase, price/performance and performance/watt is much better, not to mention overclocking ability. Also if you felt you wanted to upgrade, the current crop of quad core intel chips will slot into nearly any core 2 duo mobo, may need bios update though..

rovex · Post by **rovex** » Mon Mar 03, 2008 5:32 pm

Some hate Vista, i dont see why, i think its great. Ive been running it for over a year now, the same install, and its still fine. Doesnt crash ever, speedy, pretty and compatible with everything i have.

There is an issue with network speed compared to vista but it is faster in eveery other way, that proven now. Any perceived slowness is purely a placebo effect.

-Alex- · Post by **-Alex-** » Mon Mar 03, 2008 5:54 pm

Any update Quiche?? How are you getting along?

About time SP1 arrived really but I think I'll hang fire for a bit, SP1RC1 was fine though

Once more echo what Rovex has said ^ never had an issue other than one of my own making (heavy OC'ing and general fiddling).

Quiche81 · Post by **Quiche81** » Tue Mar 04, 2008 12:05 am

As it happens, my friend had a look as i was getting wayyyyy to frustrated, turns out it may have been
one of my DDR2 DIMM modules (2gb) I have it sat here on my desk so only running 2gb RAM, but
since its removal i've had no Bluescreens, Random app closures have dropped way off
to just a couple in the last few days.

So fingers crossed... (And touches wood)

Quiche81 · Post by **Quiche81** » Tue Mar 04, 2008 12:08 am

Tomâ„¢ wrote:
Quiche81 wrote:Running Vista 64Bit on a duel Core AMD 6400+ A 64Bit processor, im geared for speed with gaming in mind...
dual core, not duel.. anyway.. not to come across as a troll.. but if you wanted a computer that was "geared for speed with gaming in mind" why did you get an AMD chip? the core 2 duo would have made a better purchase, price/performance and performance/watt is much better, not to mention overclocking ability. Also if you felt you wanted to upgrade, the current crop of quad core intel chips will slot into nearly any core 2 duo mobo, may need bios update though..

Hey, i always see you as a troll

seriously though, its as geared to speed as
i can sensibly afford, i did considor Quad core but i had set a limit to what i wanted to
spend as an initial outlay.

Its actually pretty quick, only let down by the poo Graphics cards but i'll be updating those soon.

Tom™ · Post by **Tom™** » Tue Mar 04, 2008 2:19 am

again, the dual core intel chip is dirt cheap and runs colder and uses less power and gives better performance than the amd chip... anyway.. glad your problems are solved

rovex · Post by **rovex** » Tue Mar 04, 2008 4:55 pm

Ive not seen a low/mid range Intel Core2 that cant run 50% over spec. I often fit E4400s in budget PCs that i make for friends and run them at over 3Ghz (2Ghz std). Not one has had a problem yet.

Post by **SubCat001** » Tue Mar 04, 2008 5:56 pm

rovex wrote:Ive not seen a low/mid range Intel Core2 that cant run 50% over spec. I often fit E4400s in budget PCs that i make for friends and run them at over 3Ghz (2Ghz std). Not one has had a problem yet.

E2160 FTW 1.8ghz stock 3.2ghz overclock and prime stable. With a bit of tweaking 3.4 shouldn't be a problem. Not bad for a little over £40.

rovex · Post by **rovex** » Tue Mar 04, 2008 7:45 pm

I prefer the E4, more cache, the E2 is a bit tight on cache and it shows in some apps. Even so both will over clock like hell, easily beating the AMD rivals.

Rover220CoupeTurbo · Post by **Rover220CoupeTurbo** » Tue Mar 04, 2008 7:46 pm

Does it really matter though for someone who doesn't care about how fast it goes, as long as it does what its supposed to do.

Id rather save money and go for the cheaper AMD.

rovex · Post by **rovex** » Tue Mar 04, 2008 7:49 pm

Even at stock speeds i think the intel chips are better value.

Rover220CoupeTurbo · Post by **Rover220CoupeTurbo** » Tue Mar 04, 2008 7:52 pm

They may perform better, but for someone who just wants a PC for office stuff for example, it doesn't matter.

If I am building a computer for someone, and they don't need a high end CPU I will go for the cheaper AMD open. Dual core processor for under £30.

Does the same at the end of the day.

Rovertech 2.0

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