Bad score in 3dmark 2001

[skupko9680]

Okay I just installed a new MB/Processor combo and It seemed to me that the performance advantage wasn't as great as I expected. I upgraded from a 800mhz athlon/ga something gigabyte MB(768 pc133 sdram) to a 1900+xp /ecs k7s5a MB (768 2100 DDR ram). I'm fairly a newbie to pc's (I do design work on a mac and also some support). I had my old 800mhz pc for about a year and that has been the first I've ever owned. As a hobby, I write music and the pc became an attractive option for obviouse reasons. The old athlon that a friend built for me was a real champ. probably the most stable system (compared to my mac's) that I've ever owned. I don't think it ever crashed once. A pc convert in a way + I love the upgrade options. So here's my question, with the athlon 800 i would score a 3d mark 2001 of around 3500 with my msi geforce 3 ti200. Realizing that my MB and processor were the bottleneck I finally decide to upgrade. As things stood, everything wen't well. I was up and running in a few hours, but was a bit disapointed with the fact that my system was noticbly quicker, but when doing any heavy processer work (ie audio) it wasn't nerely as monumentle as I would have expected. I decided to run 3d mark2001 again to see if it was just my imagination, and it did improve a great deal (6456). That's a great number by comparison but expected it to be a bit higher. Am I wrong? 1900+, 768 DDR, and a faster bus speed couldn't double my last numbers? The systems ran well for the week or so that I've had it. I've updated evryting that I could think of (nividia and sis drivers). The only strange thing is that I couldn't figure out how to load any MB drivers. No where to be found. Not on the disk or website. As a mac person, this was never an issue. There was basiclly no such thing. I can't figure out where to look and see if they were installed with something else. The system devices (system board) says that none were present. Am I looking in the right place? If not where can I find the driver version for the MB? That's really the only thing that I can think of as possibly a bottle neck other than a bios issue which I'm pretty sure there isn't. Thanks in advance!

Oh, BTW I'm running windows XP home.

Thanks again!

[gibsinep]

Xp chips use SSE instructions you need to re-install windows XP to use it properly and get it detected right. Re-install windows that should solve your problem.

:t

[skupko9680]

Thanks, I never thought of that, although it sounds familiar. I'll give it a shot and see what happens. kind of a pain though. Glad I asked now.

[gibsinep]

Good luck and I hope it solves your problem. :)

[skupko9680]

Thanks again, I'll let you know. Is this going to be hard? Never reinstalled windows. Plenty of experience on a mac which is sometimes painful, sometimes not.

[gibsinep]

Windows Xp is actually pretty easy to install

WARNING------------- if you decide to re-format this will mean you lose ALL the data on the harddrive you are installing windows to.

[skupko9680]

Thanks, I new that. Like I said I do some mac consulting. Reformat is reformat! I was more questioning if it's a restore in place scenirio or it wipes the drive and not just the system. ie loss the whole drive or just the system & drivers.

[samdbugman]

you may want to go to the sos website to get the agp driver update for the k7s5a. that will make a difference. i have had this board up and running since 11/25 and the only crashes i have had is always directly related to some bone head idea of mine...
:p .....and thanks for all the help from the folks here that have helped me put of some wierd situations:p

[samdbugman]

you may want to go to the sis website to get the agp driver update for the k7s5a. that will make a difference. i have had this board up and running since 11/25 and the only crashes i have had is always directly related to some bone head idea of mine...
:p .....and thanks for all the help from the folks here that have helped me put of some wierd situations:p

[gibsinep]

skupko9680- I dont think you will need to re-format just a re-install. :t

[skupko9680]

Well, Ok. Reinstalled XP updated all my drivers and viola. 6 xtra 3d marks:( So any other ideas? I'm not all that unhappy about the performance, I just expected a bit more. I've done a bit more optimising XP and haven't rerun 3D Mark since. I'll report back and let everyone know. It still feels as if there may be a bottle neck somewhere. Just don't know where to look. On a side note. Iuse to be able to OC my msi ti 3 through there control panel. The option's been gone since the XP upgrade. (I hit almost 6000 with my old 800mhz athlon this way although normally would just run it at the defaults, thus 3500 that I mentioned) what is a good cheap/free overclocking utility for my Geforce under XP?

[salandar]

Geforce3 TI200 is the bottle neck sir:/

Get yourself a GeForce4 4400, or 4200 and I promise the score will leap up about 4-5000 points. Although, this does not solve the issue of your computer not working as fast with heavy computing loads as you would like....