OS advice

Building new, system specs
Gigabyte g7vax
Corssair 512/3200
Abit siluro Ti4600
AMD 2200xp
PCI 512 sound card
WD 20gig
Intel Pro100+ network card
Windows2000
My question is, the way w2k is installed presently is with ACPI, most everything is on IRQ9, is this a good thing? I have not started building this new rig yet, parts still in boxes etc. When i finally assemble all these items soon, should the HD be wiped clean ahead of time before i yank it out of old box and into the new? OR should i just format that drive and upon powering on install XP and let it do all the IRQ work.
Ive never built a system, as you can tell. Ive read where ACPI generally puts most on one IRQ and thats not good. If i were to do a new install of w2k does it give me the option of ACPI or Set to Standard pc? Am i asking for trouble using Standard PC and have to change the IRQ,s myself? IVe put together what i think is quality material chomping at the bit to get out of the starting gate, i dont want to screw this up. Any ideers? Advice?

 

uh... ok. So, assuming the computer is NOT assembled, and assuming hte hard drive came from another computer (hence hte preloaded win2k), you would definitely have to re-format your computer, since any large change in the hardware will definitely crash windows 2k easily. As for the irq assignments, i actually have no clue what you're talking about (yes, i know what irqs are etc etc), but basically, a brand new clean system will not have any irq troubles, unless you goofed around with them.

anyway, that looks like a pretty good system from my standpoint. Of course, you might need a bigger hard drive, since games are coming bigger and bigger every day

 

Man, get at least an 80 gb hard drive, they are only about $150 Canadian for one, 7200rpm, too. It will VASTLY improve your computer, more than is commonly imagined.

And unless you OC alot, get DDR333, it is faster than DDR400. Unless you need to overclock. If you get DDR333, I recommend SAMSUNG RAM, it is the best, IMO.
I would also wait 2 months for the GeForce5 to be in stores, so you can either get it, or get the Ti4600 much cheaper, if you can wait, that is.

 

just an FYI, IRQ9 is a "hub" for IRQ's.. everything goes through IRQ9 with win2k using ACPI.

 

Many thanx

The WD hard drive is 7200, and 20 gig is more than enuff for me. I usually only have one or two games on and any given time. Thats all this pc is for. I realize that bigger better faster is always out there, this is what i can afford at the moment, my kids have their xmas list in order also.
So, this ACPI controls and directs the IRQ,s. automatically, and it dosent hinder performance? I really like W2k over W98. So, before i canabilize my old rig, i should atleast re-formatt and have a clean, no OS on that hd? If i wipe my HD clean, should i just go ahead and do XP? How do i formatt in w2k?
Im sorry for such Noob questions, but you can teach an old dog new tricks!

 

your win2k/xp cd should be bootable. when booting up, just press enter, f8, and whatever random letter keys you need to press (ms is insane!), but you'll eventually get to a partition table. from there, partition it all you want however you want. after you do, just press enter on the partition you want to install on, then format it w/ ntfs. By default, it won't format the rest of the partitions, so remember to do it afterwards.

as for which os, it's a matter of personal preference. Some hail xp as the best, but a few friends of mine have had considerably bad experiences with them. With your computer, you should be fine with xp. If you want to churn out hte dough for it, by all means do so. If it's stretching your budget, then just stick w/ 2k (even though it will probably be a tad slower)

 

Well, I recommend the bigger hard drive because of Areal density , mainly, an 80gb has the data packed 4 times as tightly as a 20gb. So, your throughput (total data per second), is much higher, making for faster load/boot times. Also, an 80gb is less than $100 American, now.

to format, just set the BIOS to boot from a CD first. Boot from the Win2k/XP cd, then follow the steps to install. Along the way, you are given the ability to delete the partiton, do this, then create 1, or 2, etc, then you can format it in NTFS, and install.

I recommend WinXP.

 

OS adivce, many thanx

Appreciate all your input. I ended up building my new system over the weekend. Put it all on the new MB and entered bios upon first boot, enabled boot from cdrom, inserted XPpro and went to town. Deleted everything and now have new install, XP is definetly OK in my book. Every thing is working just fine, thankyou.

 

Woohoo, thats what we like to hear!

(the first system I built, I didnt make the CDROM bootable, couldnt figure out why winXP wouldnt install )