Mobos, windows and a ram question

[Howard]

How does one accomplish the task of installing an Nf7-S (that one will be purchasing) and booting into Windows without the afformentioned operating system proceeding to deliver me a BSOD upon the boot up procedure?

Is there a way round this?

Also, once I do get the afformentioned motherboard will there be any advantage of getting another 512MB DDR stick for both dual channel and twice as much ram?

[blockers]

no doubt Austin will post some time with some good advice.

Dual channel gives about a 5% perf boost. Its more effective on P4's, but its just nice to say

Will

[Howard]

Austin > All

I await his reply

[Austin]

I'll do my best. I take it you are soon to upgrade your mobo and are worried that when you do your current Windows installation will BSOD? Probably a safe bet here's two things to try ...

1. Do a fresh install of the OS (ideally wipe the HD/partn), good to do from time to time esp if you use Win9x. This can eliminate a huge variety of quirkiness and headaches but is time consuming, good to check your backups are up to date though.

2. Do an install over the top of your current Windows, ie a Repair. Stick in Windows CD and tell BIOS to boot from there first (rem to change back). For Win9x just tell it to install in the current Windows directory, if it is an OEM CD it may moan but you can simply rename WIN.COM (IIRC) as that's all it checks for. For WinXP wait for the second prompt to do a Repair as the first takes you to the usually useless Recovery Console. Again just tell it to use the current partn and Windows directory. That way you should keep all of your settings, apps and user data. I'd still rec backing up anything remotely important, good practice anyway.

Whatever method you choose ideally install Service Packs and pref check Windows Update, then install the latest drivers for all your hw (esp mobo and gfx).

[Howard]

Yeah I am going to do a fresh install anyway I think (reformat and reinstall) as it's getting a bit full of crap! Lol.

Just to clarify - Install OS, Install SP1, Windows Update, THEN drivers for mobo, sound, gfx, peripherals, etc?


Thanks for your help lads

[SilentDeath]

windows2k tbh

[Austin]

Originally posted by Howard
Just to clarify - Install OS, Install SP1, Windows Update, THEN drivers for mobo, sound, gfx, peripherals, etc?

That's how I'd do it although you shoudl find Win Update can easily be done after you install your drivers if you wish. Also rem you can get drivers from the website of the actual manu of your component (eg Creative) or from the chipset's website (eg nVidia/ATI) which is often more up-to-date.

[Howard]

Yeah this could be a good chance to actually update my drivers!!

ANd why on earth would I want Win2k? XP is far better.