Reinstall Windows or Better Cooling needed?

[2Whyzzi]

Games are crashing on me hook, line and sinker. It can't be my G400SH, cause it's had a Pentium fan screwed onto the default heatsink about a month after I installed it into my system. I bought the card June/July 1999.

Now, Should I reinstall Windows98 (current install is about 1.5years old)...

OR spend some time to improve cooling (current CPU temp after 2hours is about 45deg C)... I've spent some $ on some Arctic Silver ][ compound some time ago just haven't gotten around to gooo-ping it on.

heh - problably all I have to do is get rid of some dust and re-insert all the cards (incl the slotket

BTW: As much as I'd like to wait for the G550 or whatever, the time has come move on to the Chinese made Radeon LE. After all, being just slightly over the GF2mx in price, having DDR memory, and a near full Radeon Core (with registry tweaks), how can I loose? Esp since I'm running Win98

What do you guys think (hardware in Sig)?

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Abit BH6 r1.01
Celeron2-566 o/c to 850MHz+Slotket!!! 1.85v
256 Megs PC-133 Crucial CAS2
Matrox G400 SH OEM (not oc'd) rev=03h
Diamond Monster Sound MX400

[Paulr]

The kind of heat you're describing shouldn't be an issue.
The Intel CPU's are validated right up to 80oC (Not that I'd want to run them at that kind of temperature).
I run a PIII 1Ghz that hits up to 50oC under full load (mainly due to all the other things in my box) without any issues.
Point your finger at the OS.

[Tom]

2Whyzzi,

Nothing seems to make Windows happier
than a fresh install....no matter how carefull you are at installing/uninstalling
programs/apps, the registry always ends up with tons of leftover garbage....a good physical cleaning of the computer case interior never hurts either.



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MatroxG400MAX..and some other stuff

[2Whyzzi]

Tom: Nice to see a fellow Edmontonian

It seems I answered my own question: In other words - all of the above.

One item I've been toying with is replacing the MX400 drivers with the Maestro2E (sound card runs the same chipset), in attempt to get better driver support.

I'll see if I feel up to it. Thanks agian ppl.

Whyzzi

[SteveC]

Whyzzi - I was in the same situation as you a couple of weeks back and after trying to re-install my OSes I found I couldn't - the installation process was crashing on me too!

After MUCH torture I found out that one of my three sticks of RAM had died....

Moral of the story - check out that your hardware is all OK before doing anything!

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Cheers,
Steve

"Life is what we make of it, yet most of us just fake"

[2Whyzzi]

Thanks SteveC. Before Re-installing 98 I tried many a BIOS function to improve performance. Nothing helped. One thing I was sure of (well, with the exception of the MX400) that all my hardware was fine, if perhaps a bit dusty.

Oh - and about replacing the MX400 drivers with the Maestro2E... useless, the MX400 drivers are newer than the Maestro2E's posted on the ESS website.

yah, I've learned the hard way that when the installer starts crapping out on you, there is some sort of hardware problem. Only way to find it is to put the components in one at a time to see at which point it fails. One of my funnest (not) points last year was putting in a Savage4 in in my K6-2 MVP3 System. What it boiled down to was the Savage4 badly needed a BIOS update to be more compatible with the MVP3 chipset. I only figured that out after finding a user forum like this.

So, Along with the 98SE reinstall, Radeon LE & the Arctic Silver ][, I used almost all of a 10oz can of compressed air - most of it on the powersupply.

> And now I am one happy man! Computer is as stable as a rock! And boy do I like the Radeon (extremely overclockable too)!

If only I could find a way for the Celery2 to be stable @ 875 (believe me I tried).

Whyzzi