Sekkira

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't it the case that the lower latency of anything, the better?

As far as I know, the R2 requires SP2 (from what I remember reading yesterday). Also, I have had no issues whatsoever with the Service Pack. However, I'm running this as a workstation so don't take my word as a bible.

I doubt it's the latter, the ram should be running with a 2.5 CAS Latency, as said before the other new stick of ram was running at 3, putting them out of synch. You're probably right about it being a motherboard circuitry issue, but I really can't diagnose that, don't have the tools. Even so, it runs fine as it is now and this was the last upgrade I'm doing to this comp anyway. If I needed to get a new motherboard, I'd be going for the whole box and dice, getting top of the line Mobo, CPU, GFX Card and 2gb of ram. No real driver support for 64bit (for what I'm doing, I'm well aware 64bit tech is nothing new) at the moment, but something like that would last me years. So yeah, thanks for the help with this guys.

Don't mean to derail a thread, but I think this question isn't big enough to warrant its own topic: What's R2 stand for? Revision 2? Is that a different release of 2003? Edit: Just to point out, considering this isn't my topic, the original post's question is priority.

(following up old topics I've started out of courtesy) This was fixed by formatting the disk entirely then changing it to a basic disk. Obviously I backed up with a recovery tool beforehand and didn't lose any data. Further information is in this topic where I experienced more issues: http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=94568&hl=

(following up old topics I've started out of courtesy) Well I couldn't solve the specific issues I'm having and reinstalled. Everything works fine now. If anyone has anything to add on these issues later on, feel free to add the info here for reference.

(following up old topics I've started out of courtesy) Thanks for the info there, just posting to say I'm having no issues running the system as a workstation under SP2.

Yep, that seemed to be the problem. Grabbed a new stick of 512MB Kingston and it works fine with the current 512 stick. The system goes unstable with the 256MB stick in there, but that was expected as it's single sided. As long as the two 512MB sticks work together it's fine.

Hmm, you're right, it seems the CAS Latency in the 256 can switch between 2.5 and 3 which is why the stick works fine with each of the two 512 sticks but the two 512 sticks don't work with each other. Looks like it's another trip back to MSY tomorrow

I figured someone would need more information, not a problem. The motherboard is a Gigabyte 7VT600P-RZ Running an AMD Athlon XP 2600+ (the old Athlons, not the 64bit ones). The old 512MB double sided stick is a Ram Bo VSS3200/512 512MB DDR PC3200 CL2.5. The new 512MB double sided stick is a Apacer 512MB UNB PC3200 CL3. The 256MB single sided stick is a Veritech VM256M DDR400 VT400F/256 0504. Looking at these number, I have no idea what they mean, but I do notice a consistancy with the CL thing whatever that is, it looks like the CL2.5 may be incompatible wth the CL3. I'll do some research to see if this is the case, if not I'll do a memtest on all three then report back.

Recently I reinstalled 2003, having some unrepairable problems in the system due to hardware failures and bad maintanence practice and I managed to get ahold of another 512MB* of RAM to add to the existing 768MB. When I did do this though, I found the system to go completely unstable. Originally I put it down to the 256MB stick being the cause as it's single sided while the two 512MB sticks are double sided. This was quickly proven false when I removed the stick and ran at 1024MB. Even then it was completely unstable as if it couldn't handle any more than 768MB. My next thought was it was the new stick of which I took back to the store today and got it exchanged. When the system continued to malfunction, I repeated both the previous steps and then tried removing the old 512MB stick and adding the new one as a process of elimination to make sure it wasn't that screwing the system up. As expected it runs fine while used alone with the 256MB stick which proved neither of the three sticks are faulty. So I've put it down to something funny playing up with the hardware (ie. the two 512MB sticks are fighting over the 256MB stick like a retarded circuit board love triangle) or the system isn't recognising the extra RAM properly. For arguments sake, I'll go with the latter for the final step of elimination**. I am prepared to reinstall to rectify this problem if it is the only way, but surely there must be some way to fix it without blowing the system away. Anyone have any idea of what's going on? *Using DDR400 for all three sticks as it's an old 32bit AMD system **If it's a hardware problem (which I doubt it is at this point) I'll have to cut my losses and that dream 64bit system is going to come a little sooner than expected *waves goodbye to $2000*

Continuing on from here, I reinstalled the system entirely after having some annoying issues with everything. I've got all programs up to date and SP2 installed fine without any issues to my use of the system bar one little nagging thing. The OS now doesn't recognise the watercolor theme (yes I'm quite fond of the one displayed in the 2003 to workstation guide >_>). Instead the window display will go blank as if there's no skin for the window at all. Anyone else experienced this and/or have a solution to it?

I remember reading on these forums quite a while ago about advise to not instal SP1 on 2003 if you're using it as a workstation, however, lately I've been considering it as SP2 is now out. I've done a bit of searching on the forum but I don't find any topic which address this issue. Is it wise to install SP1 & SP2 on 2003 if I'm using it as a workstation? Is there anything I might need to worry about assuming it is okay to do so?

That worked fine, I can see all the disks now via that method. Thanks Memnoch. My guess is then that the MMC is missing some calls or pointers to these things. Is there anything I can do about that? Is it worth it (could it cause some problems in the future) or can I just leave it be as it isn't much of an issue?

How would I go about editing the poperties of the Logical Disk Manager service? Also, I'll grab that Paragon Hard Disk manager you reccomend, however, I'm slightly worried that this problem may effect something deeper than just this display.