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Thread: XP SP1, Coolbits, Det Drivers

  1. #1
    Junior Member foxwolfen's Avatar
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    XP SP1, Coolbits, Det Drivers

    As some of you already know, there has been many issues with the various driver sets coming from nvidia recently. I have a tendency to blame MS for these problems not Nvidia; ATI and others have the same problems.

    Like most people, it took me a while to figure XP out and to get it performing to the levels I knew it was capable of. (Every version of Windows has been faster than the previous with the exception of ME). A few tweaks here and there and I got it performing to nearly the same levels as 98SE for almost all of my older older games, and was astounded to see XP was actually faster than 98SE for games designed to work with DX8.0 and above and in 3D Mark 2001SE patched.

    But it has stability issues. Stand-by and hybernate both BSODed on resume, and clicking on the opengl or nview tabs also brought the system down. 14 years of experience with MS products, and for the last 6 with Linux/Solaris, I discovered that 90% of system crashes are due to video system problems. Back when I worked for Compaq a short time, when I got a complaint about an unstable system, I would bring a Voodoo 3 in and test the machine for a few days. Invariably the crashes would cease. (almost all compaq and IBM machines use ATI products, or even worse the integrated Intel 810e on Celerons).

    So this weekend, I decided that the effort was necessary to discover what the problem actually was... Det 40.41 solved the BSOD problem, but introduced other, non-critical errors. I am very anal about my systems...they need to be perfect and this was not and it was pissing me off.

    So, repartition, reformat (repartitioning and resizing is the only way to ensure the FS is properly wiped out) and a carefull step by step install with constant testing at each stage. I used DET 29.42, 30.82 and 40.41.

    Results: A non-detailed analysis of the complaints on the web about BSOD has shown that almost all the cards with BSOD problems encorporate TV-out. The fact that both the openGL and nview tabs seem to click into overlay mode supports this theory at least for my system... It is curious to note that the major change in Det40.41 is nview 2.0 the multi-display, tv out part of the driver set.

    Duron 1.3 (morgan core, MMX2, 3DNow! Pro, SSE, pc2100 DDR)
    ECS K7s5a (sis 735)
    G4 MX 440

    29.42 BSOD caused by coolbits
    - 3DMark2001SE: Win98 4632 (O/C 335 core, 495 mem)
    WinXP 4760 ( " " " " " )

    30.82 BSOD Caused by coolbits
    - 3DMark2001SE: Win98 4528 ( " " " " " )
    WinXP 4379 ( " " " " " )

    40.41 No BSOD, But visual anomalies in all settings and games.
    - 3DMark2001SE: WinXP 4676 ( " " " " " )

    So, on my system, the good ol' 29.42 are still the fastest.

    Now for those of you who don't already know, MS has released Service Pack 1 early and it is now available for download (133 meg, search for a mirror using this filename XPSP1_en_i386.exe)

    I have installed it on a clean system, and so far no BSOD and coolbits works fine... (my card is an MSI with its own utility pack which I do not install, just raw reference drivers on a clean system).

    Unfortunately Ottawa is suffering through a major heat wave and its about 38deg C (100 Deg F) in my home office at the moment so I can't push it as hard as normal, but initial benchmarking shows the service pack has added stability without affecting performance to much.

    - 3DMark2001SE: WinXP 4362 (O/C 320 core, 477 mem)

    Note: I find I lose 500 points or so when the ambient temperature is over 30 deg C, which caused the cpu to run at about 65 - 70 deg C vs 52 at normal room temp. I refuse to install MSI's craptastic Macromedia Flash based monitoring tool so I have no idea how hot the GPU is... (i'm still scratching my head over that one... who the h*ll wants a fullscreen webbrowser MM Flash based monitoring tool???? ... me thinks the tiewanese need to come back to earth)

    Anyway, I will post further results when it cools down a bit outside.

    FoxW
    Last edited by foxwolfen; 09-10-2002 at 03:02 PM.

  2. #2
    Ultimate Member AllGamer's Avatar
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    Re: XP SP1, Coolbits, Det Drivers

    Originally posted by foxwolfen
    who the h*ll wants a fullscreen webbrowser MM Flash based monitoring tool???? ... me thinks the tiewanese need to come back to earth)
    LMAO

    yeah i know... i'm so happy with the full system monitoring too that comes with Abit

    smally, tiny, can changes BIOS option real time, and it minimizes into the system tray
    if any problem it pops back out to show you what's wrong


  3. #3
    Junior Member foxwolfen's Avatar
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    Re: Re: XP SP1, Coolbits, Det Drivers

    Originally posted by AllGamer


    LMAO

    yeah i know... i'm so happy with the full system monitoring too that comes with Abit

    smally, tiny, can changes BIOS option real time, and it minimizes into the system tray
    if any problem it pops back out to show you what's wrong

    *Snicker* Yup, I always liked my AsusTek Stuff too, these guys have always had it together as far as i'm concerned...

    So tell me, how do you find Abit? I have always been curious about there stuff, but its usually a bit beyond my price range...

    FoxW

  4. #4
    Ultimate Member AllGamer's Avatar
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    Asus and Abit are in par in all areas
    Price
    Quality
    Stability
    OC-ability

    hmmm... am i missing something?

    oh and yeah, their included software are always top notch.

    so if you were able to afford Asus, you can also affort Abit

    for a while Abit was better, than Asus as far as OC-ing goes

    now they are equal.

    as for performance they are the same.

    I like Abit, cuz it has much more options in their BIOS, and their manuals are Excellent even for a tech guy like me.

    they explain with details what does each single option does, and what they suggest for the setting.

    Asus manuals are just good above average. like the have always been good quality manuals but not in details

    so that's what i find so far

  5. #5
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    what about msi boards?
    i like there live update loads, stable too

  6. #6
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    what kind of tweaks did you make to windowsXP to optimize your system? The only one i know of is reducing the page file size down to something managable..

  7. #7
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    I finally got my machine running smooth this weekend.

    How?

    I didn't install ANY of the SP1 downloads from MSN. I got 250pts higher in 3dmark, EQ didn't crash to desktop, and I'm running smooth like glass

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