Mark's Hardware Support Page
I know, pretty cheesy listing the hardware I use, but so what! :)
| Current Computer - 2002 Gateway 700X Model | ||
|---|---|---|
| Component | Manufacturer/Model | Comments |
| Motherboard | Intel Intel D850EMV2 |
Doing some research, this is the motherboard inside my Gateway. Gateway did some slight modifications but this is definitely what my motherboard is. Various system reporting tools identify it as such. |
| Processor | Intel Intel P4 - 2.4 GHz |
Intel Pentium 4A, 2400 MHz (4.5 x 533), one that came with the system. |
| Processor Heatsink/Fan | Gateway | Still using the stock heatsink and fan that came with the system. |
| Memory | Infineon 256MB RIMM Module (128Mx16) Kingston Kingston Rambus 256MB 16bit 800Mhz 40NS Memory Retail |
1 Gig RDRAM PC800-40. The Infinion memory came with the system and I recently upgraded with the Kingston memory to get a total of 1 Gig. Glad I upgraded when I did as this type of memory is getting scarce. Kingston no longer makes it and Zipzoomfly.com is currently out of stock now. |
| Power Supply | Antec True550 |
This is certainly not the stock power supply. I replaced the stock 250 watt PSU with this one in preparation for installing my new graphics card. |
| Graphics Card | eVGA.com e-GeForce 6800GT |
Dude.. all I gotta say is WOW!!! This thing rocks! I can play everything I got at 1280x1024 with all the graphic options set to high and it's smooth! I can play Everquest with the clip plane set all the way out and no lag due to graphics processing and that with Antialiasing set to 2QS and Antistrophic filtering set to 16. Getting the full version of Far Cry was also cool. As of 7/18/2004 I'm still in the training mission LOL. Here are some benchmark results: 3DMark03 with 6.1.7.2 WHQL Drivers (9,946), 3DMark03 with 6.1.3.6 WHQL Drivers (9,985), 3DMark2001 with 6.1.7.2 WHQL Drivers (14,034) |
| Sound Card | Creative Labs Sound Blaster X-Fi Elite Pro! |
Sounds great! Jammin' to some streaming audio/video from Ravetrax while I'm doing this. The CMSS-3D and 24-bit Crystalizer really make MP3 files and internet radio sound much better.. more defined and crisper. If you'll notice, you can see that I have my turntable hooked up to the Elite Pro's I/O Console Phono Input (the thing with all the dials on it next to the tower case). |
| Speakers | Boston Acoustics BA745 |
Boston Acoustics BA745 2.1 Analog Speaker System O2ID Revision 0. It's the speaker system that came with the computer. I've just never gotten around to getting a fancier or different speaker system. The Cambridge Microworks speakers I used to have are at my parent's on their computer. |
| Network Interface Card | Intel Intel(R) PRO/100 Network Connection |
Integrated on the mother-board. Using this to connect to my Cable Modem. |
| Cable Modem | Motorola. SB5120 SurfBoard Cable Modem |
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| DSL Modem | Efficient Networks, Inc. SpeedStream 4060 USB |
This is no longer attached or being used but I'm keeping this information here for now. Looks like they got acquired by Siemans. Anyway, it's a USB 1.1 device. It connects to the PC via a USB cable. There's a NIC built into the modem. |
| Dial-Up Modem | Gateway Gateway V.92 PCI Soft Modem R1 |
Since I never used the thing, I took it out when I recently re-installed Windows. |
| DVD-ROM | Gateway HLDS 16X DVD-ROM Drive |
Doing some research, it looks like the drive was made by LG Electronics. According to AIDA32, it's a HL-DT-ST DVD-ROM GDR8160B (16x/48x DVD-ROM). It's what came with the system. I'm looking at replacing it with a DVD-RW sometime soon... perhaps the one from Creative. |
| DVD±RW | Plextor PX-716A |
It kicks ass! :) |
| Hard Drives | Western Digital: WD1200JB Seagate: Baracuda 7200.9 (ST3120814A) |
As of 7/18/2004 the Western Digital drive is only about a week old, same as my power supply and graphics card. It replaced the 120 Gig WD drive that came with the system. My old HD started making a whining noise that started really getting to me and I thought it might crap out any minute. This is the newer model with 8MB cache. Much quieter! :)
I got the Seagate on 11/7/2005 to became my new main drive when I decided to re-install Windows. I decided on Seagate because of it's quieter operation with its dynamic fluid bearings. The WD drive will now be used to hold large media files, disc images, and the like which should cut down on the fragmentation. |
| Floppy Drive | NEC 1.44-MB |
Ehh, it's a floppy drive... But, I do have one. Systems are starting to come out that don't even have one. |
| Primary Monitor | Gateway FPD1730 |
17-inch (43.2 cm) flat panel active matrix-TFT LCD with anti-glare coating, Recommend resolution: 1,280 x 1,024 @ 60 Hz. I really like it. Image is crisp and easy on my eyes. The thing with an LCD monitor though, the best picture is at its native resolution of 1280x1024 since that's how many actually tiny little squares it has. Other resolutions do not look as good. |
| Secondary Monitor | Digiview 1707+ |
This one was the primary monitor on my old computer. This is a 17 inch monitor that I run at 1024x768. Windows XP Identified this as a Delta DC-770 monitor. The first one had a slight problem with it. One of the phosphors didn't work (one RGB element). So, I exchanged it for another. Might see if I can't get their HR-70 model. (few days later...) Nope, got the same kind. This one works much better. A pretty good image I'd have to say. I like its OSD options and the fact that it displays the frequency it's running at. It also remembers the screen positioning for the different resolutions which is real handy. |
| Printer | Hewlett Packard DeskJet 722C |
So far I've been very pleased with this printer. The only quirk it has under Windows XP is that when printing in color, the built-in XP Driver uses the color cartridge to print the black parts instead of the black cartridge. Obviously, it's just some generic driver that works with a bunch of models. If I print from my old computer that's still using the 98 drivers, then it prints the black parts with the black cartridge. |
| Scanner | Hewlett Packard ScanJet 6200C |
This scanner cost quite abit, but I think it was worth it. This is a USB Scanner and it's pretty fast. Luckily HP made an XP driver for it. To get an idea of it's scanning quality, check out some of my DVD Movie cover scans via my DVD page. |
| Mouse | Logitech USB Optical |
Your standard, two-button, wheel in the middle, USB, Optical mouse. Of course it has the Gateway black and grey color scheme. |
| Old Computer - Home Built | ||
|---|---|---|
| Component | Manufacturer/Model | Comments |
| Motherboard | DFI P2XBL Rev A2 |
So far it seems like a pretty good motherboard. It has been very solid and I have had no hardware compatibility issues. Definitely a board I would highly recommend. |
| CPU | Intel PII-300 MMX |
Works fine. Although, I did discover that Warlords II Deluxe will not run on a MMX CPU without disabling the Cache which causes it to run like molasses. Luckily Warloards III works fine. |
| CPU Fan | PC Power & Cooling, Inc. CPU-Cool® K1 Pentium II Processor Cooler |
The original fan on my CPU died. It didn't want to spin up and it was acting irratically. So, I replaced it with this one. We'll have to see have much cooler the processor runs after awhile. |
| Power Supply | PC Power & Cooling, Inc. Turbo-Cool® 300 ATX |
It's lowered the CPU temperature in my case about 20 degrees farenheit. The case itself is no longer warm to the touch. The fan in this power supply blows air from inside the case to the outside. The old one sucked air in and blew it across the motherboard; however, it also recycled the hot air that was already inside and blew it back in. Dumb design if you ask me. Now I'm ready to get myself a RIVA TNT AGP Graphics card! |
| Graphics Card | Creative Labs Graphics Blaster RIVA-TNT AGP |
I just got a Graphics Blaster RIVA-TNT AGP Card (end of February '99). It installed without a hitch into my system. This is the first graphics card I've had where the mouse cursor (I use a custom yellow mouse pointer) does not flicker and flash when it's over a window that is changing graphics (when playing an AVI file, or WinAMP, or other frequently updating program/window). So, I was quite pleased with that. Quake II seems to run just fine. I did have to use Colorific to raise the gamma level so Quake II wasn't so dark. I just made a separate Quake II profile for Colorific, since my Windows desktop itself looks fine. |
| 3D Accelerator | Creative Labs 3D Blaster Voodoo2 12 MB |
One smokin' card. (graphics/game performance wise.. not like literally, hehe) Oh, the RIVA is too! Got best of all worlds now: Glide, OpenGL, and Direct3D Acceleration. |
| Sound Card | Creative Labs Sound Blaster Live! |
Love it! Love it! Love it! |
| Network Interface Card | 3COM 10/100 Etherlink III |
Uhhh.. it works. :) |
| Speakers | None | N/A |
| CD-ROM/DVD | Creative Labs 8X DVD-ROM |
Uhmmm, it doesn't work currently. |
| CD-ROM/CD-RW | Creative Labs CD-RW Blaster 4224 |
Although I managed to make a coaster out of my first burn attempt, the rest have been succesful. The problem the first time probably had to with the fact that I had my Virus Scanner going in the background (doh!). Or, it may have been because I did not have DMA Enabled in the Settings TAB for the drive. I enabled DMA on it when I noticed that I could not play MPEG files from it without having audio and video stuttering. Once I enabled DMA, MPEGs played smoothly.
I have the CD-RW drive on my Secondary IDE port as the master and my DVD-ROM slaved off it. Amazingly, both drives work fine together. I can still play DVD Movies and I can even burn CDs from my DVD-ROM to the CD-RW on-the-fly even though they are both on the same IDE chain! I have also found out that it's best to leave Auto-Insert Notification turned on. If I turn it off, then the computer will lock-up sometimes when I insert a CD-RW disc. With Auto-Insert turned on, the abCD software is able to properly mount the drive. Having Auto-Insert turned on does not affect the CDR burning process as the Nero Burning ROM software automatically turns off Auto-Insert Notification as it's burning. |
| Hard Drives | Western Digital: 10.1 Gig 6.4 Gig 1.6 Gig (on shelf) |
So far I've had good luck with them and their performance is pretty good. My 1.6gig Drive just died after owning it for 3 years and 9 days. I called them up and they agreed to go ahead and do an in-warranty repair/replacement. Knew I liked these guys :) |
| Monitor | Impression 3 Plus | It's just some old 14" monitor. |
| Printer | See above | Sharing printer over the network. |
| Joystick | Logitech Wingman Extreme Digital |
I've only had the joystick for about four days (3/10/99 right now). Seems to work well enough. It's attached to the midi/game port on the Sound Blaster Live! I am using a MIDI Adapter Cable with the Live! to separate the midi/game port into separate joystick, MIDI-IN, and MIDI-OUT ports. So far I've only tested the joystick with Forsaken, which is why I bought it. To damn hard to play that game without a joystick! |
| Mouse | Microsoft Intellimouse |
Your standard, two-button, wheel in the middle, serial mouse (not PS/2). Why did I put what mouse I used? Oh well... LOL |
Following are some left over things that I haven't cleaned up yet since creating the chart above:
Cambridge Soundworks for their MicroWorks Speaker System. They ROCK!!! I also had the following speakers from them for my Home Theater setup: The Ensemble, Center Channel Plus, and The Surround speakers. This time, I will probably try out their MovieWorks 5.1 Speaker System. For those that are curious, I was using the Pioneer VSX-D606S Dolby Digital receiver. It has two S/PDIF and one RF digital inputs. The S/PDIF inputs on this receiver are compatible with the S/PDIF (AC-3) outputs of the AWE64 Gold and Dxr2 DVD Decoder card. This time, I will probably try their newer model VSXD-607S or the slightly cheaper VSXD-557S. I'm using a Stand alone DVD player with my TV/Stereo as all that's in another room... just more convenient than running 50 feet of cable from my computer to my TV/Stereo.
Regarding my Video Spigot (which I no longer have one now), in order to get it to work under Windows 95, I had to install an updated driver which was not made by Creative Labs. It was developed by Radius. You can grab spigot95.exe here if you like. It is a self-extracting ZIP file. The reason for this update is that Windows 95 handles the upper memory area between 640K and 1MB differently than Windows 3.X; consequently, using a base memory address in that range with the old Spigot driver would cause a GPF. This driver gets around that. I would recommend a base memory address of D2000 with this updated driver. If you already have the drivers for the Spigot installed, then just copy these file into your C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM directory to replace the old files. If you have not installed the drivers, you can read how with this Creative FAQ. Well, I did have a link to one, but looks like it's no longer on Creative's Website. If you actually have one of these ancient cards and need help, feel free to email me.
If you happen to own a Hewlett Packard Scanner (one that uses a SCSI Adapter), and are thinking about getting PC-DVD Encore (or other DVD product for that matter) or if the DVD player quits working after installing a HP Scanner, you might want to look at: HP ScanJet Scanners - DVD or Multi-CD-ROM Drive Quits Working after HP Scanning Software Is Installed.
Maxtor for their 2.0Gig hard-drive I have. The performance of the Maxtor is noticeably worse than the Western Digital, but hey, it was free. :) Currently, this drive is in a system I made for my Mom.
Seagate for the 4.3 Gig Medalist 4321 (ST34321A) drive that came with this new system. After comparing it's performance with the Western Digital 6.4gig, I may replace this drive. It seems to choke when I enable DMA with this drive. This drive is sitting on the shelf now. I need sell it or put in my mom's computer perhaps.
Page last modified: Saturday, April 12, 2008 12:16:38 AM EDT