New to Win2k and need help from some pros

[Guest]

Hi all and thanks in advance for any and all help you can give. I just recently tried going back to Win2k after short stints w/Win98SE and ME. I haven't had much luck stability wise with different things on either of the prior two, hence I'd very much like to get into what my friend calls the rock solid W2k. Here's my setup:

1.2T-Bird@1656(144x11.5 core1.80 IO 3.5; 29CIdle, 36Cf.load)
Swiftech MC307-0A HS W/ASII
256MB MemMan w/ Micron True CAS 2
Abit KT7A mobo 3rbios
Enermax 350wEG365P-VE PSU
Herc 3DProphetII Geforce2Pro w/DetonatorXP/2k v21.81
Soundblaster Live X-Gamer w/Liveware 3.0 for 2k
3Com HomeConnect PCI Card
IBM Deskstar 75GXP 45G HD
TDK 16/10/40 veloCD ReWriter
Gneric Floppy

Okay I've been running Win2k at only 1.2 since installing it as the OC'ing will come after I get this thing stable to begin with. I've got my SB card running in slot 5 which is a solo IRQ slot for this mobo and my DSL card in slot 2, although it seems that w/W2k it doesn't make any difference as for some crazy reason I've got all of the following on IRQ 11???:

MS ACPI-Compliant System
NVIDIA GeForce2 GTS/GeForce2 Pro
VIA USB Universal Host Controller
VIA USB Universal Host Controller
Creative SB Live! (WDM)
3Com ADSL PCI Modem DialUp/PPP

Hmm, that can't be good. In Win98SE/ME the SB had it's own IRQ at 5 in that slot and I'd also had to make sure to disable SB 16 Emulation, as that has all kinds of probs when it comes to this mobo and Via's southbridge. However upon installing the SB in Win2k I no longer have an option to disable SB16 emluation or in device manager as it's no longer listed there. The SB card's 16 emulation won't share IRQ's for some crazy reason(which pretty much all us SB people w/this mobo can attest) and I'm thinking it's probably causing some of the instabilities I've been having. Random shutdowns of the system while running winamp, odd system slowdown while installing software(ie wise installation will hit 99% and sit there for up to 20 mins), and other random things. Haven't seen a bsod yet but the system has a tendancy to come up really slow and hang on apps at times.

I've read there's no way to assign IRQ's w/in W2k, is that true? If so how does one go about doing away w/ACPI and what kind of performance hit will that incurr if any?

On another note I think that all the backgroud programs are the cause of overall system slowness and have no clue as how to get some of them off of windows startup. In W98SE/ME I'm used to typing in msconfig in the run command line and getting a programs list where apps can be turned off permenantly that aren't needed which like to hide in the background. However I'm finding I can't seem to do that in 2k. Sure I can close down a few things/trees in Task Manger's Processes tab, but I see no way of perm removing things that are tossed in there when installing certain apps. And what the heck is all that going on anyways in the process tab? I'm used to seeing only a few things w/98SE/ME. Anyone know a page where I can readup on what all that is that's going on? Sorry for the ignorance but I'm fairly new to W2k and am pretty much a newb when it comes to it. The easy way out of the SB prob is buy a new card I know, but w/lack of funds that's not an option for me at the moment. Plus there's the fact that so many seem to have an SB card and are working fine w/it anyways, so I'm holding on to that in hopes something can be worked around.

Thanks in advance for any help and lemme know if I've left out any info that could help.

 

[redstar]

admin tools/services --all can be controlled from there re: bkground processes.

if your system is 100% acpi compliant..sharing irq's cause absolutely no problems.
the only way you can change irq's in windows is via the bios by saying the OS is non plug and play.
now the system we had to do this on was not acpi to begin with. So, i'm not sure if that will mess up an acpi enabled system.

sb16 emulation, i would guess, is not win2k compatible --the win2k drivers must not have that feature. I don't see my system as having it either.

1.3 amd on a MSI ms-6380 (k7t266 pro -r)

if you want sound in a dos box --you need to dwnload a 3rd party solution. I forget name of it just now.

 

[redstar]

also, what is your definition of slow?
what is 3dmark2001 score?

 

[Guest]

Looking at 4026 by 3dwinmark2001 score. Haven't used it till now so not sure what scores I would be comparing that to when it comes to W98SE/ME or if that's a decent score or not. When I say slow I guess I'm not sure if it's standard for W2k to sit at the W2k screen for like a minute w/the blue bar half full. That and whenever I shutdown wether I've changed/installed anything on the system or not it sits at saving settings for up to 2 mins. To me that's slow, but then again I'm not sure what the standards are.

As far as the SB goes, so what you're saying is b/c the os doesn't have those drivers that possibly it didn't load them? Know anything about SB Liveware3.0? Just read somewhere that they blow. Anyone got any suggestions on loading up SB drivers and which ones? I don't really care to have SB16 emu, just that I've always had to disable in device manager as far as 98/Me goes or I get all kinds of conflicts. I'm just trying to fig out if SB 16 emu is enable and running, if so then they're prob the cause of the grief I'm getting w/2k so far, thus looking for a way to disable it as before. Seems 2k labels SB stuff diff than either 98/ME in device manager, I guess one of them is SB 16? Anyone know?

 

[redstar]

heh, you can see my other post on what i think of liveware.
shrt ans: they suck!

starting up...takes me about 35 seconds.
shutting down is about 11 seconds.
and i have a score of only 3500 🙁(
(i'm just dwnloading the latest detonators for my msi geoforce 2 card)

nothing on my system is overclocked.
i also have 512 mb ddr.

 

[redstar]

my score is now 3750 with new drivers and a slightly overclocked vid. card now.

(det xp drivers raised score about 165 pts)