Building PCs from scratch

[daverme]

I have built from scratch virtually every PC in my house, now numbering about 10. Until, recently, it seemed as though I could throw together darn near any combination of components and the machine would always work. Lately, though, just the opposite has been true; it seems like everything I touch has a compatability issue of some sort, especially where an AMD processor is involved, which means either VIA or ALi chipsets. Am I alone here or have others had similar experiences? Also, I have thus far had nearly zero success in swapping a mobo without reformatting and reinstalling, in spite of good suggestions found here. Is this something that requires practice or what?

[daveleau]

On your second note...
I have always had to reformat and reinstall to get good performance with a mobo swap. I can get the machine running w/o reformatting but to get optimal speed, I have to reformat and reinstall. I have found that it is less of a headache for me and I get a clean system to boot (no pun intended). http://sysopt.earthweb.com/forum/smile.gif

Dave

[sns]

I've been having a bit of trouble lately with my first VIA chipset m/b. Nothing too serious but still a hassle. I went to the via site and downloaded the latest via drivers but then started having errors (with 98 & ME) I reinstalled both versions and used the orig driver that came with the m/b for 98 and completely left the ME one alone (still not sure if the system is running as good as it should but it hasnt missed a beat).
From what I've read at sysopt it appears its a good idea to format and start from fresh, maybe if u start up in safe mode the first time u boot up u might be able to delete the settings in 'system devices' and reboot to get it to find everything again - not sure, never tried it.

[PassnThru]

All my systems have been AMD - only built one Intel system - a Celeron for my brother. Obviously I am a big AMD fan - have been from the beginning because - well, I was cheap. Now, at least, they actually offer better performance for less money. Anyway - I digress - I have had my share of problems with VIA chipsets also. I have always considered it part of the price you pay for great performance at a lower cost. In fact, that is why my brother has a Celeron instead of an AMD product. I wanted to build it and forget it. I do think things have changed for the better now though. You mostly have some high strung video cards operating at their own limit that have some compatability issues. When you build your own, you tend to pick the best of breed - and the bleeding edge has its price. That's why the OEMs offer such a limited selection - gotta test every combination. As for swapping MBs without a clean install, tried that on my last one. Big mistake. Two weeks later it was semi stable. Took the opportunity last weekend to start fresh with a new hard drive. Very stable the very same day. An added benefit was the severe reduction in space used. You don't reload all that junk until you need it.

[daverme]

I forgot to mention that I am a cheap-skate as well so I have been a fan of AMD also. Sounds like you all HAVE had some experiences similar to mine and that IS comforting ... and the feedback has been helpful. Thanks, and keep up the good work.

Dave