ssmokee

As long as the modules arent complete crap quality wise, you wont have a problem. The only caveat is you have to run all your RAM at the speed of the slowest module.

But it costs 400 Euro....

Hard to know where to start. All versions of the L7VMM2 use the KM266 northbridge, and I think that it might support 1GB modules. I cant say for sure though because Im getting conflicting answers on google. These is also no gaurantee that the specs ECS have on their site are 100% correct, and same goes for the e-machines tech guy said. If it isnt properly recognized, the board will likely only see 1/2 the 1GB, ie 512MB. Wouldnt worry about it because it isnt the property of e-machines. Here is a guide on how to do it; Making a Windows Installation CD from a Recovery Disk I really have no idea since I dont have first hand experience with BF2 or Far Cry, but I think the higher the visual quality settings you use the more likely you are to see an increase.

The winchester isnt bad, but venice/sandiego have an improved memory controller and SSE3. Overclocking wise I think the newer venice/sandiego cores are significantly better.

S-ATA 2 wont show any performance benefit over S-ATA 1 yet. The only part of a hard drive that could possibly sustain that speed is the cache. As you can see by your first benchmark you arent even close to the 150 MB/s of S-ATA 1. The limitation isnt the interface, its the hard drive.

The board will still run CPUs with lower FSB speeds. That just means the FSB wont go higher than 333MHz, so dont waste any money/time buying a 400MHz FSB chip. All non-barton core Athlon XP chips run at 266 FSB, and should work just fine in that motherboard. 1GB modules should work fine in it too.

It *might* be able to run a 1GB module (its a long story). There really would be no harm in trying, provided you make sure that where ever you buy it will let you exchange/refund it for a 512MB in case it doesnt work out.

According to the manufacturers site the one with 3 PCI slots doesnt accept 1GB standard unbuffered modules. That seems a bit strange to me that one does and one doesnt, since they both appear to have the same northbridge. It kinda looks like your stuck with 2x512MB as your max unfortunately.

You got the part right about it having something to do with IP's. Some ISPs will only let you use one IP, some let you use two, some even more (but thats very rare). The dlink/linksys/netgear/smc routers that are all so popular now are actually a combination NAT router + switch. NAT (Network Address Translation) lets you share one external IP address with multiple computers.

Far Cry and Battlefield 2 probably will be able to take advantage of the extra RAM. PC2100 RAM might be somewhat of an issue. Supposably BF2 is very sensitive to FSB and memory speeds. Since your board has 3 memory slots it obviously isnt either of the ones I linked to. A 1GB module might or might not work in it.

http://www.ecsusa.com/products/l7vmm2.html http://www.ecsusa.com/products/l7vmm2_11.html Looks like it would depend what version of the board you have. 1.5GB wouldnt be a problem for the processor. How worth while the upgrade would be depends on what programs you would be using. What kind of stuff are you running?

What are you using to read the CPU temp? 70+ Celcius is pretty nuts considering it is running at stock speed right now. Where was your computer bought/built? Are there any case fans feeding/exhausting air from the case? If you dont have even a single case fan, that could very well be your problem. Nowadays just having vents on the case isnt enough. Also check your CPU heatsink for dust build up also. Todays heatsinks have their fins set very close together making it very easy for dust to block air from flowing between the fins. Now with overclocking in mind, I suggest taking a look at the thermaltake silent boost (right now it is on sale, plus free shipping). Even though I hesitate to recommend thermaltake due to their past, they have come up with some decent stuff as of late. Ive read a couple of online reviews vouching for the ability of the silent boost. This one at furioustech is a good example.

What BIOS version is loaded on that board? What is the CPU temperature reported in BIOS?

It may not be as easy as you would hope for, but is possible. Take a look at these two threads: Ntfs Support In Win98se Or Me?, can it be done? NTFS in non-NT based OS?, Add NTFS to Win95/98/ME anyone?

Sorry about the delay. Ive seen many reports of tbreb B's getting up around the 2.3 - 2.4 GHz range on air cooling. OC'ing your XP 2200+ should be easy, as long as the motherboard lets you modify the CPU core voltage and the FSB speed. All you would really need to do is up the FSB from its stock 133MHz, to 166MHz. Then increase the core voltage enough to get it stable, since the CPU would now be running at 2.25GHz instead of 1.8GHz. Here is an article with good pics about OC'ing a tbred b duron using the method I described above. http://www.ocworkbench.com/2004/articles/ocduron/p1.htm One thing I would suggest doing (if you choose to go this route) is download wincpuid or something and verify that your XP chip is actually a Thoroughbred B core, and not a Thoroughbred A. The earlier tbred A chips were not stellar overclockers from what Ive read.

Just so you know, your current xp 2200 has some good OC potential if it is in fact a thoroughbred B chip. Your current cooling looks like it needs upgrading though because 70C is just way too hot.

Sounds interesting! http://www.litepc.com/support/kb.cgi?view=60

This probably isnt what you wanted to hear, but I will tell you any way. I restored a win2k ghost image that didnt have S-ATA drivers, and proceeded to boot it from a S-ATA drive conntected to a sil3112a controller. All that happened was it booted up and once it got to the desktop, it immediately asked for a driver for the sil3112a adapter. I actually was expecting it not to boot, so it was a surprise when it did.

From what you described it sounds like a power or heat related issue. Stick to the basic components for now and unhook any unnecessary lights and things. I have no idea how those guru drivers work, but I would check the BIOS and look at the CPU temp and monitor voltage level for several minutes. Check to make sure the CPU is identified correctly in BIOS and running at the speed it should be. Do you have good airflow inside the case? The power supply should enough as long as long as those specs are accurate. It is still possible that you just got a lemon unit though, so you might want to try hooking up a known good unit that has been in service for a while.

Keep going on the PSU specs....

Post your full system specs. Brands, model numbers, etc.

The 9800 pro and 6600gt will be pretty close in directX performace, with the 6600gt usually keeping slight lead. When it comes to OpenGL performance the 6600gt will really lay the boots to the 9800pro though. http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2277&p=3 Look over the specs very carefully when buying. If you look closely at the specs available on newegg, some manufacturers set the cards memory to run at 900MHz, while others run at 1000MHz. You would obviously want the faster memory, so shop wisely.

Powmax power supplies are low quality, and often (if not always) overstate their power output ability. Samsung hard drives are fine, just avoid models with one year warranties.

First off, after you do a clean install of XP w/ SP2 (ie. the ALi Integrated v1.091 driver from the Soyo site should not be installed yet) what are you using to verify that the 200GB seagate is in PIO mode? If you follow this you should be able to see: Right click on My Computer and select properties -> Hardware tab -> Device Manager button -> IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers Listed under IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers you should see Primary IDE Channel and Secondary IDE Channel, double both of them (one at a time) and go to the Advanced Settings tab. You should see a display the current transfer modes, and be able to select which mode the controllers are in. Set all of them to DMA if available. Also check to make sure you are using a 80 wire ATA cable to connect your hard drives. Using a 40 wire cable could quite possibley force it to PIO mode. I would recommend holding off on that purchase until you investigate further. Besides that, the audio will not be an upgrade. It will be roughly the same quality as your current board, give or take a little.

Not from what I have read about it, although there has been a lot of speculation. MS announced a while back that for licensing purposes, a dual core cpu is still considered a single cpu. Further confirmation from AMD is here (scroll down to the chart).