Phoenix from the flames....

[Dymetrie]

Well due to having been paid some serious money for some PC repair work I did last week then I'm looking at possibly upgrading Phoenix...

I want to take her to 64bit and bring her up to date (well she's an XP 3000+ at the moment).

I'm not going to start spending silly money and as such am only going to upgrade a few parts to start with, and young Garp has offered me a DFI Lanparty Ultra-D socket 939 board to begin the metamorphosis :D

Looking at getting an 4200 X2 chip (around £60) an X1650 (around £50) as the board is PCI-E so need to replace that, and then sticking with what I've got already (1.5GB PC3200, 200GB SATA, DVD writer and the other funky peripherals and add ins which I have :)).

I'm also thinking of buying (I know what you're thinking here, me? buy software?) a copy of Vista, namely Home Premium 64 bit OEM, but that will depend if I can cover the cost by selling the old parts (board, chip and GFX) to my brother to upgrade his poota with...

Any advice, ideas, pointingandlaughing stints would be much appreciated :)

[Feek]

You can have my Vista x64 OEM Home Premium at a discount. Never activated so the key is good.

If you're going 64 bit, make sure that drivers are available for all your hardware. I got lucky :)

[Dymetrie]

That'd be awesome Feekles and makes it more likely that I'll actually be doing this soon :D

erm... Hardware is phone, PDA, camera, cam... erm... PS2 gamepad... Think that's aout it (will probably think of something else at some point)...

[Mark]

Printer? Scanner?

Phone/PDA if they're Windows Mobile you'll have to get used to new software - ActiveSync was replaced. Camera should be fine. Dunno about the gamepad.

Otherwise sounds fine. 'Up to date' may be stretching things a little as both the 4200+ and S939 are one generation back, but still a lot newer than what's in there now and I'm sure will suit you perfectly fine.

[Dymetrie]

Phone is a Sony-Ericsson W880i, will check that it's supported... (checked and it is :))

PDA is an M600 with windows mobile so the activeSync replacement will be fine :)

Camera is a fuji, requires no drivers just works as an external drive :)

Printer/Scanner is an HP PSC1200 which is sat in a box as there's nowhere in my room to put it (plues it's run out of ink) :(

[Mark]

OK - Printer/Scanner is the only one with potential, but if it's relatively new, and as it's a good make, should be OK.

[Feek]

Printer is supported (I just ran the 'add new printer' wizard) :)

[Daz]

Just a note on the PDA front - it needs to be a Windows Mobile platform - not Pocket PC. Pocket PC 2000 certainly doesn't work with MDC, 2003 might, but I dont think so.

I'll insert a general warning about being on the cutting edge and possibly bleeding all over it - though you know what you're doing more than most, so it doesn't apply as much :p

[Mark]

The M600 runs (as Dym stated) Windows Mobile 5, which works absolutely fine with Vista. :)

[Dymetrie]

Well I just bought...

AMD Athlon 64 X2 4200 (http://www.aria.co.uk/Products/Components/CPUs+%2F+Processors/AMD/Athlon+64+X2+Socket+939/AMD+Athlon+64+X2+Dual+Core+4200%2B+2.2GHz+%28939%2 9+OEM+?operation=shoppingCartAdd&productId=27692&context=)

and

ATI Radeon X1650 Pro 512MB PCI-E (http://www.aria.co.uk/Products/Components/Graphics+Cards/PCI-E/ATI+Radeon+X1600+Series/ATi+Radeon+X1650+PRO+512MB+PCI-Express+?productId=27248)

Now to see if Simon wants to buy the old parts of Phoenix and I'll be buying a copy of Vista Home Premium x64 :D

[Richard Slater]

Just to confirm the WM5 + Vista thing, have tried two (well three technically) PDAs Acer n310, n311 and a Fujitsu Seimens all WM5 and they worked fine with Vista Enterprise. Bluetooth on the other hand is flakey as it ever was, works for some models and not others, don't know if that is Vista though, but it worked with the same PC running XP.

You know the licensing thing with Microsoft OEM products yeah?

http://bink.nu/Article10669.bink

[Mark]

The Bluetooth issues are mostly down to whose Bluetooth stack you use. The Microsoft supplied stack in Vista is severely crippled and missing all but the profiles that are needed to (supposedly) make sync work.

I'm currently using a hacked WidComm stack that seems to work (comparitively) OK on XP, and is supposed to work on Vista 32-bit. Vista 64-bit is, unfortunately, a complete PITA when it comes to 3rd Party Bluetooth as Microsoft refuse to certify Bluetooth drivers.

[Dymetrie]

Bluetooth?

/me looks at all the USB cables he has..

/me giggles

[Mark]

Me joins in giggling. You think I'd use Bluetooth out of choice?

Well, actually I do, but only for things that are designed for it (diNovo, stereo headset). :)

[Feek]

/me smiles at the V2.0+ EDR Bluetooth USB Adapter which is fully Vista compliant which he just installed.
/me opens Computer, double clicks on the mobile phone icon and wonders whether to use it as a serial device, a modem or just transfer some files to it.

Just received today, working like a dream :)

(WidComm stack from 27/07/007 on Vista x64, no problems)

[Mark]

Aye, I have one too. Generic, unbranded, cheap, and works. Trouble is that Vista is lacking two thirds of the V2.0+ profiles (e.g. audio, headset, stereo audio, and so forth). Of course, if you don't use those two thirds, then you don't have a problem.

[Feek]

It asked me if I want to use it as an audio device so I guess it's all there now..

[Dymetrie]

I has pretty things :)

[Feek]

Pics or STFU.

[Dymetrie]

/me STFU

Camera is downstairs and I'm sleepy...

Generic X1650pro is a Sapphire though :D

[Dymetrie]

Rebuilt this evening and am now running on Vista Home Premium 64...

It's nice, am having trouble getting VNC to work (can find and login remotely but then just get an authentication failiure :(), am still configuring but so far I'm liking Vista and liking the new setup :)

One annoyance was that the new board wouldn't let me use all 3 sticks of RAM so I'm reduced to 1GB until I can get it sorted... plus, for some reason my PC3200 is only running at 333.... All stuff to look into on the morrow methinks...

[Mark]

Do AMD chips use the same Dual Channel tricks as Intel these days? I've been well out of the AMD market since the Core (and in truth, long before that), so I dunno.

[Dymetrie]

No idea Mark, but Phoenix seems to be both sprightlier and more sluggish (this is due to RAM though)...

Only problem I have is that due to a missing soundcard module on this board I've had to use a Creative SB Live! 5.1 PCI card... Drivers installed ok but it's not routing my 5.1 properly (rear speakers are dead)...

If anyone has any ideas how to rectify this (no software available from creative) then I'd appreciate it muchly :)

[Mark]

You can't. There are no drivers for the SB Live! series beyond the generic ones in Vista. Creative, **** that they are, decided in their infinite wisdom to abandon everyone who didn't have an X-fi.

I have the same problem (or would have were I still running Vista on this PC).

[Garp]

/me guesses that a trip home to find the sound card module for the mobo may be on the books soon..

[Dymetrie]

/me considers asking for a refund on the board as it is not 'fit for purpose' :p

[Stan_Lite]

You can't. There are no drivers for the SB Live! series beyond the generic ones in Vista. Creative, **** that they are, decided in their infinite wisdom to abandon everyone who didn't have an X-fi.

I have the same problem (or would have were I still running Vista on this PC).

On a side note, if you have an ASUS board with an X-Fi, there's a good chance you're screwed with Vista as well - looks like Creative dropped the ball a bit when considering Vista compatibility - ****ers.

I bought a Trust card which was very good and had Vista 32 bit drivers (not sure about 64 bit) which worked (unfortunately, I had to ditch it because they didn't do XP 64bit drivers for it). I'm currently using an M-Audio card which works fine on my dual boot Vista 32 bit/XP 64 bit system (I know it's an odd configuration but I wanted XP on my gaming rig as well as Vista and the 64 bit was the only one I had spare :p ).

[Mark]

I keep thinking of going M-audio myself, or at least someone other than Creative. Problem is I'd like a card with two line inputs, and they seem rare.

[Garp]

M-audio do lots of 'bargain basement pro' cards with multiple inputs, I'm just not sure they're necessary appropriate for gaming.

*pats his audigy2-ZS Platinum breakout box*

[Dymetrie]

Well, the soundcard finally managed to install itself properly and I have proper 5.1 (and the option to balance the speakers so it sounds right) so I'm nice and happy with the really old 5.1 Live! card now :)

This evening (not 90 minutes ago) I installed 2GB of RAM....

WOW

Makes such a difference, Phoenix is now flying and is more stable than with the 1GB I had. Plus, the mobo auto-detected the new stuff as 400Mhz and CL3 (if I tried forcing this on the old stuff, even though it was, then I got BSODs) and automatically runs as dual channel. Vista has changed my 'experience rating' for the RAM from 4.1 with the 1GB to 5.8 with the 2GB!

Only things lagging behind now are the CPU at 4.9 and the GFX at 4.5...

But I'm still loving it :D

[Feek]

I won't say I told you so, but........

:D

Glad it's working well.

[Mark]

But I'm still loving it :D
Since when did you start working for McDonalds? :p

Glad to hear it's all working as it should now. :)

[LeperousDust]

Only things lagging behind now are the CPU at 4.9 and the GFX at 4.5...

But I'm still loving it :D


I think Vista teamed up with hardware manufactures and deliberately introuduced these USELESS numbers that mean NOTHING! Only so we spend more money on hardware to make them higher ;D:D