E-66

The main thing I'm going to be doing is editing large .wav files and encoding thousands of wavs to both lossy & lossless formats. One of tests they do on Tom's Hardware is encoding a full length CD to MP3, and you can see the performance increase they get by overclocking. I'd like to get this kind of improvement too. That's the impression I got too from reading the Tom's Hardware article on overclocking the E8000's.It looks like a P35-based motherboard like you guys have suggested is a great choice, and I'll just get an inexpensive video card to go along with it, like the Sapphire Punto showed me. One more question: I'm going to go with 2GB of memory (2 x 1GB) - is there any brand you'd suggest using with that Gigabyte brand motherboard? I ask because regardless of how many good reviews a particular brand of memory has, I see a lot of comments from people on Newegg about how Brand A memory doesn't work well with Brand Y motherboard, but when they changed to Brand B memory everything was fine. And yet for someone else Brand A memory worked fine with their Brand Z motherboard. Seems like circular mess I can't make sense of. I was thinking of just getting Crucial memory since that's what I've used in the past successfully, but now even the higher end Crucial Ballistic is getting bad reviews on Newegg. I know you have to take all reviews with a grain of salt, but it's still a concern.

I don't want to go too far off topic, but what's the deal with the oddball memory speeds I've seen on Newegg like these? DDR2 675 / PC2 5400 DDR2 900 / PC2 7200 DDR2 1000 / PC2 8000 DDR2 1100 / PC2 8800 DDR2 1111 / PC2 8888 DDR2 1142 / PC2 9136 DDR2 1150 / PC2 9200 DDR2 1173 / PC2 9384 DDR2 1200 / PC2 9600 DDR2 1250 / PC2 10000 DDR2 1300 / PC2 10400

You never said how long it takes you to install. You could speed things up considerably by copying the CD to your hard drive and installing from there. It takes me 14 minutes to install XP on a socket-754 board with a Sempron processor.

I'm guessing it doesn't. Double-clicking the .exe doesn't do anything, and I saw this on the FAQ:Q: Why doesn't xCHM work well with my file? A: Please take a look at the 'Limitations' section on the technical notes page. xCHM is but a humble front-end for chmlib, and it's not meant for reading Windows help. Use hh.exe to read Windows help.

Could you (or someone) explain the 'locking' part in more detail? The motherboards I've had up until now haven't had a whole lot of overclocking options in the BIOS, is this just some setting I've never seen before?I'd like to do exactly what you mentioned in your post above - use DDR2-800 memory and overclock the FSB from 333 to 400MHz. That will keep the memory running synchronously with the FSB, won't overclock the memory, and take the E8400 from 3.0GHz to 3.6GHz. According to what in an article on Tom's Hardware specifically about overclocking the E8xxx everything should remain stable since this is pretty conservative overclocking, at least as far as this CPU goes.

Another question: at what point do PCIe video cards require a dedicated power connector from the power supply? Can I assume the inexpensive Sapphire card you linked me to doesn't require one?

I see motherboard specs like Memory Standard: DDR2 1066. What exactly does this specification mean? Is it the max speed ram the board supports w/o overclocking? Is it ok to use DDR2-800 in a board with a 1066 spec? I don't want to overclock my memory, just the FSB. Is using DDR2-800 in a motherboard with a DDR2-800 memory standard the same as using DDR2-800 in a motherboard with a DDR2-1066 memory standard as far as performance goes?

I don't know what that means? When Punto said that boards with integrated video don't overclock too well I thought he meant that overclocking would affect the integrated video, not the other way around? No no, I have no interest in overclocking it as high as I can. I don't want to have to do all kinds of extra cooling just to keep the thing from blowing up. I just want to overclock it a little bit, as shown in the link to the Tom's Hardware article in my first post. For 'basic' overclocking they simply upped the FSB from 333MHz to 400MHz and took their E8500 CPU from 3.16GHz to 3.8GHz and reported that it ran completely stable. Doing that to the E8400 would take it from 3.0 to 3.6GHz. That's all I'm really interested in doing.It's not that I *need* to overclock, but since these chips seem to overclock so well I figured I can either leave it stock and get DDR2-667 memory or 'mildly' overclock it and get DDR2-800 memory. Just seems like the latter would be a better choice since I'd get an extra 600MHz out of it. EDIT: I have no problem getting a separate graphics card, Punto. I've never had integrated graphics before, but the last time I was planning a computer build you and I had an ongoing conversation about it and you suggested I go with onboard video since I wasn't (and still am not) a gamer. I ended up not going with onboard graphics because I had an ATI Radeon 9250 card (AGP) I had never used so I ended up using that. I'm not familiar with ATI's X series of cards, the 9250 has been the 'best' video card I've ever used, so should I assume the X700 series that the Sapphire card is based on is even better? It's only $20 too and has all 5 star reviews. Getting a card like that gives me more motherboard choices too.

I wasn't aware that mobos with onboard video didn't overclock well. Why is that? Punto, this is ironic - I've never had a mobo with onboard video before, and you're the one who convinced me to quit avoiding them. Now you tell me they don't overclock well. Ugh!

I've got an Intel Wolfdale E8400 on its way to me and need a motherboard and RAM. I've read about these CPUs quite a bit and some people have reported that their motherboards haven't recognized them correctly. I don't know if these were older boards that didn't have a BIOS update available yet at the time the users wrote about their experiences, or if some socket-775 boards just won't work with them. Overclocking isn't something I've had a lot of interest in in the past, but in reading about these CPUs they seem to have so much headroom for overclocking that I'd like to do some in a conservative way. I read an article on Tom's Hardware specifically about overclocking the E8000 series and I'd like to follow their approach and overclock the FSB to 400MHz and match it up with some DDR2-800 memory to keep it running synchronously with the FSB. I'd like some recommendations for a motherboard with integrated video that would suit my needs and allow me to do the basic overclocking I'm interested in. I'm mostly clueless about things like specific chipsets and why someone would favor one over another so I need the help from those of you who know a lot more about these things than I do. Thanks.

I've been using 98Lite with the Win95 shell pretty much since I first started using Win98. I had a Win95 system and somehow found out about 98Lite and decided to use it when I built my first pc with Win98. I had read about how the Win95 shell was much faster, etc., and I found that to be true so I stuck with it. 98Lite allows you to switch back & forth between the 95 & 98 shells, and even with the 98 shell I still have this issue with the .chm files. I just tried your latest suggestion with the XML update, still no change.

Any ideas? In all the years I've been using Win98 this is the one problem I haven't been able to find a solution for.

I'm glad you mentioned that, Punto, because ideally I'd like to get a motherboard with onboard video. There are A LOT more Intel based motherboards on Newegg than there are for AMD processors, almost 3x as many. The Wolfdale E8400 was showing as being in stock again just now so I ordered one. I don't know if I'll get one or not though. I tried it last week and before I even finished checkout I got a message that it had been removed from my shopping cart due to insufficient quantities. I made it all the way to Step 1 this time, guess I'll just have to see what happens.

Yes, I know. That's why I made sure I mentioned that I had it installed even though I don't use it. I've had all the IE .cab files on my HDD for some time, but I downloaded them again, reinstalled IE, and applied MGDX's IE updates. No change - same screenshot as in my second post.

I'm not planning on pushing everything to its limit. It's just that these CPUs seem to have so much margin for error for bumping things up a bit that I figured I'd try to get a little extra out of it, but I want to make sure I get the right memory and motherboard to start with.

MY IE version is 6.0.2800.1106 I installed the HTML update but still get the same message shown in my second post.

I tried it. Still get an error message, but now without the part about the missing white space.

A couple followup questions.... 1. If I want to overclock the FSB to 400MHz, does it matter which stock FSB speed the motherboard supports, or can that be adjusted in the BIOS? I'm looking at socket 775 boards on Newegg right now and see ones that support 1333(O.C)/1066/800/533, 1333(O.C.)/1066MHz, 1333/1066, 1066(O.C.)/800/533 MHz, and 1066/800MHz. 2. According to what you said above, if I'm going to overclock the FSB to 400MHz then I want to use DDR2-800 memory to keep it running synchronously with the FSB (I'mnot considering DDR3 due to price). So along the same lines as in the first question, does it matter what memory standard the motherboard supports, or do I definitely want to get one that only supports DDR2-800? Thanks.

It's normally not that big of a deal but occasionally I need to look thru a help file and I can't. My Win98 install has been customized with 98Lite and I use the Win95 shell. I don't use IE but it is installed. Whenever I try to open any .CHM file I get the following: Any input would be appreciated. Thanks.

It says on the first page of this thread to only use the 2226 patch on IBM portables with removable disks, and to use 2225 on all other PCs/portables. http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?s=&amp...st&p=534910

Thanks. So the reason they're using 800MHz memory is because they planned on overclocking? I've read that these CPUs are really easy to overclock. Haven't done much of it myself in the past but it certainly seems like something worth considering.

This link on Wikipedia says Core 2 technology benefits from RAM running synchronously with the FSB. In their example they're using a FSB speed of 1066 as a reference and they say using DDR2 PC2-4200/533 or PC2-8500/1066 memory is best, which makes sense according to the charts. They go on to say that using PC2-5300/667 can actually decrease performance. Then they say that using PC2-6400/800 will provide a significant performance increase.... but PC2-6400 isn't running synchronously with the FSB. So why the performance increase, just because it's faster memory? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_Core_2#..._memory_modules Here's what I'm getting at... I want to do a new build with either a Conroe or Wolfdale CPU with a 1333 FSB. According to the chart on that wiki page I should use PC2-5300/667 in order to run synchronously with the FSB. When reading reviews of these CPUs on NewEgg I've noticed that a lot of people list their system specs. I have yet to see any who list PC2-5300/667 memory, they're all using PC2-6400/800. Why? There's no cost difference. Is it because they had this memory left over from a previous build that used a CPU with an 800 FSB, or is the PC2-6400/800 a better choice than the PC2-5300/667? Thanks.

I've got a variety of old CPUs and motherboards that work but they're old and slow and I don't know if I should pitch them or not. Even the CPUs in that "A Laptop For Every Kid" program are more powerful. I just don't want to pitch them if they'd be of a benefit to someone so I figured I'd ask. Thanks.

I used v1.4 for the first time today and I also got an 'Access is Denied' pop-up box for both of the above items. Also, I know this is a minor quibble, but of all the things in My Computer's right-click contect menu, 'regedit' was the only one that wasn't capitalized.

I don't know what others' experiences are with defragging FAT32 partitions, but I found that XP defragged NTFS partitions at least 5x faster than Fat32 partitions. http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showto...mp;#entry621042