Computer Woes

[Parias]

So the big question on everyone's mind at this very second is probably "Where the hell has Parias been?" Actually, the beta people are probably wondering when the next release will be out and the non-beta people are probably wondering what the hell BCM is like... but anyways.

Recently, the family system (the one that everyone except me uses), the ever-reliable P233 we've had for 5-6 years now finally coughed up it's last volt of energy a couple of weeks ago. Went out with a bang.. fortunately, nothing else died, both HDs are fully functional, as is all the hardware (tested most of it on my personal gaming machine). Diagnosis is most likely that the power supply's buggered. Since the system was badly in need of an overhaul anyways, we figured now would be a great time to pick up a new system. And so we did.

After spending some time checking around and finalizing the specs, we finally scored ourselves a custom-built P3/800mhz with 128 megs of RAM, a 52x CDROM drive, a 32x8x4 CD Writer, a Creative Labs SB Live! Value, 30 gig HD, and, most importantly to this little story, a GeForce 2 MX. Now, under normal circumstances we were going to get a Hercules 3d Prophet 2 board, but when we arrived to pick up the system (another story in itself... naturally we had a blizzard hit us on the very day we were going to pick up the comp) we found that instead we were getting a Gainward CARDEXpert GeForce 2 MX. Seeing as how the person we were working with was going on about how great the card was, I gave it a "What the hell?" and went with it. Although I've never even heard that this card existed before this week...

Anyways, once we got home, the plan was for me to swap out the GeForce 2 card and give my family the Voodoo 3, since I'd get more use out of that sucker than they ever would, and vice versa with the V3. Made sure all references to the 3dfx card were gone, shut down my system, and set them both up.

The other system booted up just fine with my Voodoo 3, no problems there. However, my system, on the other hand, suffered greatly. Upon booting up I was greeted with this charming view which clearly proved to me that all that time spent by my friends trying to convince me to get a NVidia card was CERTAINLY not for waste! *Cough*

That's right, the card had some HORRENDOUS horizontal line issues and could only render at 640x480x4. Any higher and it simply hung while loading Windows.

Fetching a small barf bag to contain my nausea, I pathetically attempted to navigate over to NVidia's site and load up the latest Detonator drivers. No change. Went to the official site of the actual card. Installed THEIR drivers. No change. Poked card repeatedly with screwdriver. No change. Cussed loudly at card. No change.

Eventually I popped it into the system it was actually meant for and booted it up. The first thing I noticed was that the horizontal line issue showed up during the boot-up sequence (where it counts the RAM and detects drives and wahtnot). This was due to the fact that the startup screen is graphical in nature on my motherboard I'd imagine (the lines don't show up in a standard DOS view), but it clearly proved that drivers weren't the issue, since it hadn't even loaded any yet. That was enough proof for me, I shut down the system and popped my V3 back in, then put the GeForce card back in my personal machine to dick around some more

After a few good hours I got fed up and finally salvaged the ATI Rage Pro II+ from my 233 and popped it in. It's slow, makes my eyes hurt at 1152x864, and can't render 3d worth a damn, but at least it actually renders above 640x480x4! Also just recently tried another test with the GeForce card.. it's completely dead, both mobos refuse to acknowledge the card is even in there anymore. Can't say I blame them....

So that's the primary reason I've spontaneously vanished lately.... been working on this issue and nothing else. Called the person who sold us this POS and he's working on getting us the card we actually wanted. I'm personally not expecting much progress untill next week, but untill then, I'm stuck with this POS ATI card. The good side is, now I don't retch uncontrollably when looking at my desktop! Hoorah!

Just figured I'd let you all know what's up in my ever-exciting world. Things should return to normal soon, then I'll be back to pissing off the SC with my ever-annoying banter (assuming I haven't already ). Till then, I'll be gawking at the massive speed of the "family" system and playing "Catch the hammer" with the GeForce card.

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Commodore. Parias

ICV-Galatae, Sanctuary Storage Facility (Sygan)

Balor Fleet

ICQ 1293359

Staff member at HardNews

[Supreme Cmdr]

quote:

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and the non-beta people are probably wondering what the hell BCM is like

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Actually, if things go as planned, there will be a demo before Christmas. So, they don't have to wait very long.

quote:

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Just figured I'd let you all know what's up in my ever-exciting world. Things should return to normal soon, then I'll be back to pissing off the SC with my ever-annoying banter (assuming I haven't already ).

Nah, I love you man!

Till then, I'll be gawking at the massive speed of the "family" system and playing "Catch the hammer" with the GeForce card.

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LOL!!! Parias, Parias, Parias. Good thing I have protective covering on my keyboard....but I do have to wipe the coffee of the monitor now.

[This message has been edited by Supreme Cmdr (edited 12-01-2000).]

[Akuma Minako]

Poor Parias. **pat pat** Don worry it'll all be okay...

**picks up a fluffy pink space bunny and hands it off to him.** Here, hold this for awhile. It'll make you feel better.

**skipping off she dissappears into some unknown hallway and insane mad laughter can be heard echoing.**

**The bunny cuddles wif Parias**

(Yes, I'm in a wierd mood...No, you're not getting out of it....Yes, I'm an art student.)

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Commander Akuma Minako

GCV - Tenchi, Orion Starstation (CENTRIS)

Deterrence Battle Group

www.orion-hq.fsnet.co.uk

[Silk]

Parias how come you're not sending any Radioactive Garden Gnomes after this guy that gave you the bogus Geforce 2? I had a friend that had a similar problem with his Geforce and I believe it had something to do with the voltage on his mobo. But since you tried it in both mobos it's proably not the case.

On a side not I read your review of MechWarrior 4. We should play sometime. Maybe I'll take a variant of the new MadCat2 just to drive ya crazy !-) Let me know. It's been a while since I played Mechwarrior( I use to play Mech 2 a lot) but I picked up Mech4 and am having a blast. Never liked Mech3 that much.

[Parias]

As I said in my review Silk, I make it a point to make any MadCat Mk.2 pilot's life miserable, so if we play, you'll be asking for severe punishment But aye, give me a yell on ICQ and we'll get set up with a game.

I've just recently decided to drop the entire damn deal with the guy. We'll grab what we can, grab a refund on the defunct GeForce 2 card, and I'm gonna nab a Voodoo 5 5500. A-Power.com is selling it for only $289, and I'd prefer having something reliable, stable, and with FSAA.

Akuma: LOL!

But yeah, I've already begun contemplating many a fate for this person involving the broken GeForce card, his ass, sixteen radioactive garden gnomes, and a pink goat. Ain't a pretty sight, but I'm sure he'll catch on to my dis-satisfaction real quickie!

Thanks for the support though everyone.. you don't realize how much a person can rely on 3d acceleration untill it's taken away from them. Argh, I HATE this ATI card! And it's even PCI for cripe's sake...

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Commodore. Parias

ICV-Galatae, Sanctuary Storage Facility (Sygan)

Balor Fleet

ICQ 1293359

Staff member at HardNews

[Charles Lindsey]

quote:

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But yeah, I've already begun contemplating many a fate for this person involving the broken GeForce card, his ass, sixteen radioactive garden gnomes, and a pink goat. Ain't a pretty sight, but I'm sure he'll catch on to my dis-satisfaction real quickie!

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I wouldn't rip the guy too bad. From your own post above he's working on getting what you wanted. You can certainly be angry you got a bad card but don't blame the guy too much. Not his fault your system was built with the wrong card. Or was it?

Ermmm, with your position at Hardnews a call to GEForce might be in order and even a reqest for a new card to see what it can do.

If you think that's bad I got a little story about a computer that was supposed to be a demo (IE it sat on the shelf and people played Freecell on it or so I thought) But had actually been to someone's house and was a lemon froom the get go.

Just my thoughts.

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Vice Admiral Chavik

ICV Phoenix, Sygan Starstation (Sygan)

Fleet Leader - Balor Fleet

Official BC3K Tester

[GREG MILLER]

Trust me, I feel your pain Parias.

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Commander Greg Miller

GCV - Sark, Orion Starstation (CENTRIS)

Fleet XO, Wing Leader, Tsunami Battle Group

www.orion-hq.fsnet.co.uk

'Here cometh the storm!'

[Parias]

Good news people! My Voodoo 5 5500 64 MB AGP arrived just dandy and installed great! Back in action, so if anyone wants to get their ass booted around in Mechwarrior 4, give me a yell and I'll gladly comply

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Commodore. Parias

ICV-Galatae, Sanctuary Storage Facility (Sygan)

Balor Fleet

ICQ 1293359

Staff member at HardNews

[Guest]

Actually Parias, those vertical lines could be either the card was not making good contact with the motherboard (aka, unplug, replug, apply cpr...) or the card was burned out (overheat) or was just a plain example of how much NVIDIA cards SUCK. *grin*

Hell im drooling at your system.. tell me how much and where you got it from!! My p2 300 is screaming to be sacrificed upon the Altar of Upgrade.

BTW, Akuma & other anime loving folks: You will find BETTER prices in anime AND in english subtitles/dubbed and UNEDITED (and the translation is PERFECT) if you buy the DVD version of the anime series from Amazon.com or somewhere else. Here in Japan its impossible to find english version (even subtitled ones) and when I called the publishers (yes I even called them mothers!) they said they didnt know where I could buy them and that I, as an individual (aka, non-bussiness) could not purchase directly from them. Prices here are 3 TIMES as much as in amazon.com.

Ye have been passed on this wisdom gained through 2 months of footwork. Pass it to your next of kin.

See you on the other side!

(Will return December 21st! Hope Derek sends me the NDA heeeheee!!)

Cheers!

[Guest]

Parias: My first GeForce purchase was a Creative labs GeForce 1 and after about 4 days it died a screaming-horrible-death. Actually it did some funked out thing where all the textures in 3-d mode looked garbeled and would swim as the point of view moved. I do like their cards though, just wish they had the kick ass FSAA 3DFX has going for it. The 5500's also got much better 2-D over any of the Geofrces. I noticed a drastic improvement in clarity and color in Baldur's Gate 2 (and the other related Infinity engine games). Just don't enable tripple buffering if you play it in OpenGL mode. =)

Tac: I don't know about pricing, but you may want to look around for the Japanese Episode I laser disc (assuming you like Star Wars and own a LD player). It's the only digital formated release of the movie (so far)... down side is I think it has Japanese subtitles.

[Pyros]

You gona hate me , I got that very same graphic card(was going to go for the named brand but hey it cost less and give same benchmarks) works perfect in my machine so the card must be a duff one

you just got bad luck

I run mine with my Duron 700 and play all my games that allow it at 1280

[Akuma Minako]

Heh. Thanks' Tac! You're in Japan? Lucky....*&@!#@$!

That's so not fair!

Anyway my list grows.

-Tac the Goldfish

-Parias the fuzzy bunnie caretaker? (Shrugs) If you can come up with a better nickname I'll use that instead..And no it can't be Parias the Magnificant.

LOL...I'm tired. It's like ohh let's say about 10:00 here...**yawn** I'm so sleepy.

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Commander Akuma Minako

GCV - Tenchi, Orion Starstation (CENTRIS)

Deterrence Battle Group

www.orion-hq.fsnet.co.uk