Question about Asus P3V4X mobo and optimization


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Hi,

I have the Asus P3V4X motherboard and have some questions about optimization.

I run WinXP home and have the typical problem these boards have with my SBLive! card (popping etc..). I have the latest Via 4in1 drivers but have never played with the PCI latancy or tried the PCI Latancy fix they have. Not sure what to do at this point.

Also what can be done, besides the typical defrag etc.. with my drive setup shown below, my bottlenecks always seem to stem from the hard drives. Games and such always seem to lag when the HD is being accessed.

My drives are as such:

IDE1 - 2 - WD Caviar 7200rpm ATA66 drives running at UDMA4

IDE2 - (Master) Plextor 12/10/32A CDRW - (XP reports it to be in Multiword DMA mode2)

(Slave) Creative PC-DVD 12X - (XP reports it to be in UDAM mode 2)

I had the Via IDE miniport driver installed once but was told that is for special circumstances and to remove it and just use the filter driver that is installed with the 4in1's... again *shrug*

Any suggestions?

Thanks so much!

You probably aren't going to get a benefit from anything unless you buy new hardware. You could always buy a Promise ATA100 PCI card and a new ATA100 hard drive (Probably cost about ~$100, total).

Also - if your hard drive is being frequently "accessed" while you're playing a game (and you're not loading a new level or someting), it's probably going to be swap file usage (you didn't post your RAM so I can't tell, and if its in your sig, its off, so I cant see it ;). ) Dropping 50 dollars for 256 megs of RAM could be all you need to solve that hard drive problem.

Actualy I currently have 512M of memory and per someones suggestion I have a permanent swap file setup on a "swap" partition on my C: drive. All of my games are installed on my D: drive.

Maybe this helps.

~dev

If you've defragged and you're still having problems with 512 mb of memory, then you might want to look at buying an add-in card or a new motherboard.

What games are you playing that's causing the bottlneck? Not many games need to read/write much when you're using 512 mb of ram.

  Quote
Originally posted by devnulllore

Hi,

I have the Asus P3V4X motherboard and have some questions about optimization.

I run WinXP home and have the typical problem these boards have with my SBLive! card (popping etc..). I have the latest Via 4in1 drivers but have never played with the PCI latancy or tried the PCI Latancy fix they have. Not sure what to do at this point.

Also what can be done, besides the typical defrag etc.. with my drive setup shown below, my bottlenecks always seem to stem from the hard drives. Games and such always seem to lag when the HD is being accessed.

My drives are as such:

IDE1 - 2 - WD Caviar 7200rpm ATA66 drives running at UDMA4

IDE2 - (Master) Plextor 12/10/32A CDRW - (XP reports it to be in Multiword DMA mode2)

(Slave) Creative PC-DVD 12X - (XP reports it to be in UDAM mode 2)

I had the Via IDE miniport driver installed once but was told that is for special circumstances and to remove it and just use the filter driver that is installed with the 4in1's... again *shrug*

Any suggestions?

Thanks so much!

update your Plextor Firmware to version 1.09

Firmware File:

http://www.plextor.com/english/support/dow...s/1210au109.exe

Website:

http://www.plextor.com/english/support/dow.../firm_1210.html

i bet you've never done it. if you have cool, but when?

Well, all I can say is upgrade to a better motherboard that supports UDMA 5 or buy an add-in card. In the long run the first option is the best idea, but if you're desperate for a solution and are willing to pay for it, an add-in card and a new hard drive could be the solution you're looking for.

Yes, for the short term I think I may have to get a new ATA100 hard drive and a controler card. To upgrade my MOBO I would need to get a new processor and memory. The one I have only supports SEC2 slot chips and PC133 memory.

If you know of a MOBO that supports the P3-800EB (slot 1 - 133fsb) and PC100 - 133 memory that also has UDMA 5 capabilties PLEASE let me know.

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