APM vs APCI W2K

[halfblood]

I notice that my NTFS drive gets more fragmented than the FAT when analyzing with Diskeeper or PerfectDisk. I have my paging files on other FAT partitions, not NTFS.

Indexing is located in services but also in Add/Remove program, Windows components.

[Scytale]

Ah yes, spooge - I think it depends a lot on your harddisk and system config (memory, cache working set parameters).

I tested this using a very decent disk sub system, but with heavy NTFS fragmentation I noticed very severe performance degradation of up to 80% on the last partitions of my Quantum Atlas 2 harddisk. The system partition residing on the middle of the disk took much less damage though (didn't actually test it, but my estimate is about 20-30%).
The Atlas 10K showed similar (relative) results, but I never bothered to test it in-depth and since I was not going for raid I decided to reformat to FAT32. That's where my story ends.
At this time the Atlas 2 is on NTFS moving stuff about for my proxy/firewall P2 rig, still fragmenting like hell but pretty safe and secure; the 10K is much happier on FAT32, playing desktop.

[Technoid]

Back to APM VS APCI:

I have yet to get a nic to work in ACPI mode!

Tested 2 ISA NIC's and 3 PCI NIC's none worked!

2 realtek cards one ISA and one PCI

a VIA nic!

2 3COM cards a ISA and a PCI

In W2k failsafe mode they worked

In W98 also in ACPI mode they worked great!

But not in W2K ACPI mode!

Im going to get an USB --> RJ45 10Base-T adapter!

and see if that'l work!


------------------
INTEL PIII550 MSI 6163
G400Mill 32MB SGRAM + RRG
SBlive
256 MB RAM CAS2
43GB HDD Space!(Actual 40GB) (13+30 Quantum drives)
Pioneer 104S DVD 10x CD 40x SLOT IN
SONY CRX100E 4/2/24 CDRW

[LAMFDTK]

Gurm...If you view your Hard disk in "My Computer" in W2K right click on the drive, On the bottom of the window is the check box, "Allow indexing Service to index the disk for fast file searching"

Can't stand to see a good question left hanging....

[Compton]

Sorry, I haven't had much time to wander thru the forums lately, but LAMFDTK knows what I was talkin about. I believe that it's somewhat similar to Fastfind in MS Office. I don't really know if it runs all the time, or some of the time or what... but disabling it seemed to make a difference for me.

[Gurm]

Technoid:

It's your motherboard or something, since all my NICs work fine in Win2k ACPI... lessee... I got 3Com ISA's, 3Com PCI's, a couple no-names (Netgear SOHO), a few Intels...

Nope, no problems with a single one, yet!

- Gurm

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Listen up, you primitive screwheads! See this? This is my BOOMSTICK! Etc. etc.

[Technoid]

OK, GURM whats your MB?
The funny thing is that my original NIC, a VIA Amazon never ever worked when it shared IRQ and that stands over thre MB's:
AOPEN AX59PRO (via mvp3 - not surprised)
DFI P5BV3+ REV B (via mvp3 - not surprised)
MSI 6163 Bios rev 2.6(Intel BX - realy surprised)

I have goth the 3COM 3C905-TX to work rather wobly in W2K but it's not stable and the whole system starts to act weird after a while (basicaly at the same time as my NIC crashes )
It's with the latest beta drivers!
And they do seem's to be beta!

Whell any way i have ordered a USB converter that boosts W2K support!

As i only use my network to conect to a printer i think it will be enough!

------------------
INTEL PIII550 MSI 6163
G400Mill 32MB SGRAM + RRG
SBlive
256 MB RAM CAS2
43GB HDD Space!(Actual 40GB) (13+30 Quantum drives)
Pioneer 104S DVD 10x CD 40x SLOT IN
SONY CRX100E 4/2/24 CDRW

[dZeus]

I have a 3c905c-tx myself, and run it with no problems whatsoever in win2k. But be sure to use the drivers included in win2k. The ones on the 3com site f***ed up my hibernation (after hubernating and booting up again, the network connection was lost).... after uninstalling them everything was fine again.

[Gurm]

Ah yes, don't use 3COM's drivers. This has been a good rule of thumb since Win98 was released. It's just a BAD BAD BAD idea.

- Gurm

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Listen up, you primitive screwheads! See this? This is my BOOMSTICK! Etc. etc.

[Technoid]

With W2K standard drivers the card only produced a situation where my G400 crashed togheter with my SBLive!
The picture froze and the speakers started to scream!

[Gurm]

And this somehow has something to do with your NIC drivers? What led you to come to this astonishing conclusion? Please fill us in, I'd love to hear this train of thought...

- Gurm

------------------
Listen up, you primitive screwheads! See this? This is my BOOMSTICK! Etc. etc.

[Technoid]

The W2K drivers produced the above descripted crach while the 3COM beta drivers did enabling me to "see" the other 'puters on my net and when the gave out only made the explorer windows crash!
With the standard W2K drivers i couldent disable the net card and then reenable it without a system crash.
That worked with 3COM drivers!

And Gurm i would still want to know what Mainboard you have? please


------------------
INTEL PIII550 MSI 6163
G400Mill 32MB SGRAM + RRG
SBlive
256 MB RAM CAS2
43GB HDD Space!(Actual 40GB) (13+30 Quantum drives)
Pioneer 104S DVD 10x CD 40x SLOT IN
SONY CRX100E 4/2/24 CDRW

[Gurm]

Ok Technoid. Let's start off:

My mainboards (the ones where my G400, my SB Live! and my 3Com 10/100 3c905B have worked together in flawless harmony under Win2k):

Abit BE6
Abit BE6-2
Abit BF6
Abit BP6 (dual Celly 533, current config)
ASUS P2B
ASUS P3B-F

Other motherboards where I've had 3com NIC's run flawlessly:

ASUS P2L97
Dell (from Optiplex GX1's)
Intel Endeavor Pentium Pro dual-boards
Some shitball no-name VIA SS7 boards (low end Epox's maybe)
Abit BH6
Abit BX6
Abit BX6-2

Now, for the second part:

Your computer is screwed. It's not the NIC. I guarantee you 100% that if you took out the NIC and reinstalled Win2k you would STILL have these problems with your video and sound card. Why don't you start by looking for the solution to that problem, instead of presuming that there's something intrinsically wrong with the way that Win2k handles NIC's?

I'm not trying to be mean here, you just seem to have completely overlooked the obvious problem that it's NOT THE NIC.

- Gurm

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Listen up, you primitive screwheads! See this? This is my BOOMSTICK! Etc. etc.

[Technoid]

I have not missed the "PIONT"!
I dont claime that W2k has a problem with NIC's!
I can get the NIC to run "flawlessly" in W2K!
I only have to switch the APCI off!
It did run Great under Win9X (Wich also is in APCI mode)!
As long as it diden't share IRQ with anything else!
I'm not trying to add i NIC to a system.
I'ts about a nic that abrouptly stops working since My MB got W2K ACPI support!
I't might be that the W2K APCI support that was added in the latest Bios uppdate is flakey!

BUT:

6 months ago i seviced a DELL that had the exact same NIC that i have that diden't work either because it shared IRQ with four other devices!
That NIC also worked great as long as it diden't share an IRQ!
And that 'puter had diferent MB,Graphics,sound boards than i have and the 3Com nic still diden't like to share IRQ's

AND if you (Gurm) dislikes me just because i said nasty things about 3COM nic's I can asure you that it is the same with all other NIC's I have encountered and not a special isue with that particular 3Com model!

Almost every time i encounter a computer with strange problems that has a NIC (any brand, model) installed it's because the NIC shares IRQ with something else!


------------------
INTEL PIII550 MSI 6163
G400Mill 32MB SGRAM + RRG
SBlive
256 MB RAM CAS2
43GB HDD Space!(Actual 40GB) (13+30 Quantum drives)
Pioneer 104S DVD 10x CD 40x SLOT IN
SONY CRX100E 4/2/24 CDRW

[Gurm]

Ok, calm down. I apologise if I sounded like I disliked you. Let's start again:

1. 3com NIC's can share IRQ's until the cows come home under ACPI. There's no problem there.

2. Many motherboards have flaky first implementations of ACPI. Which board are you using, perhaps we can tell you of a better BIOS.

3. It's still possible that your video card and/or sound card have drivers that play badly with ACPI. My wife's Monster Sound MX300 (Vortex2) is that way. I have to get her a different card, because that one just isn't happy with her system's ACPI implementation, and she has a P3B-F!

4. Take a deep breath.

- Gurm

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Listen up, you primitive screwheads! See this? This is my BOOMSTICK! Etc. etc.