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Windows 2000 Overclock 5.2GHz


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Overclocking a computer is said to have almost nothing to do with its operating system; I conducted an experiment to determine whether Windows 2000 Professional, installed on modern hardware, could in fact perform at a high computational level.

The OS includes USP5.1 and .NET Frameworks 1.0 to 4.0 (from windows2000.tk), and blackwingcats HD 3000 graphics driver.

An i7-2700K is socketed in an Intel mainboard, the Biostar TZ77MXE, with G.SKILL RAM 4x1GB/1333 in the memory slots. Stock timings and voltage settings were used throughout, except for the CPU multiplier and the CPU voltage.

Initial tests suggest the system is stable at 5.2GHz with 1.44v.

At 5.1GHz, only 1.37v is needed for stable operation.

Apparently Windows 2000 not only works with modern hardware, it doesnt even hold things back. No wonder adherents love this operating system; its lean, fast and uncluttered, relatively free of the burdensome features of other, less elegant, OSs. Its almost as if it were designed merely for doing the job at hand.

It remains to be seen whether this setup is truly stable, but the preliminary indications look favorable, as far as reported by IntelBurnTest and Prime95 (Torture).

post-375408-0-33454800-1365477780_thumb.

Edited by bluebolt
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Very awesome! Have you considered trying out the PAE extension if you have 4+GBs of RAM? This is awesome that Windows 2000 still works on very modern hardware. Now if only we can get all sorts of drivers to work with it as well.

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I only learned of PAE within the last several weeks, on these forums. The concept is intriguing, and if I were to do it over again, I would definitely start out with 8GB of RAM, if only to have the option of experimenting with PAE. If I’m reading the posts right, even people with only 4GB of RAM are using PAE to get the “practical” RAM (3.5GB plus or minus) up to a full 4GB. Do you find PAE to be stable? And speaking of drivers, Tommy, definitely the more the merrier, and I know one driver I would like to see made…an AHCI SATA driver for this setup.

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PAE seems to be extremely stable on my Asrock motherboard with the nVidia GeForce 8600GT video card. It seems to have a slight issue if you use an onboard Intel graphics controller as it takes away your colors and resolution and leaves you with 640x480x16. But at the very least even with that issue, I had my full 4GBs of RAM show up in Windows 2000 with PAE enabled. :)

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Again, like the fellow who got 8 gigs and six cores working, this might get me to return to 2000 Pro,

I'd like to see this on a AMD system 'cause right now i don't have a spare system to experiment on.

Currently using a Corporate/Student XP SP3 that doesn't need a key or activation [which I detest].

Though M$ is doing everything they can to destroy the traditional desktop with Metro, and earlier

OSs with VS 2010++, they want to turn our non-activation discs into coasters.

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I will get out of computing all together if Windows 2000/Windows 98 were to completely vanish into thin air. What Microsoft is doing right now is a load of crap and I completely despise Windows 8. I don't care how fast it is over Windows 7. I think anything VIsta on up is nothing but bloatware and a waste of resources. I want a clean OS that gets the job done and doesn't add a lot of extra malarkey that nobody wants anyway. And them adding the word 'App' to their software is enough to make me want to strangle them as I detest that abbreviation so badly. Windows 2000 does what I want it to and I tell people to save their breath when they tell me to upgrade to something newer. They can have their playthings from MS, I'll stick to a real OS thank you very much.

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Do you find PAE to be stable?

The Intel graphics driver will likely not work with PAE enabled :( AMD/ATI drivers seem to be a hit-or-miss, and NVIDIA drivers work just fine. There are some rare occasions when some applications may not work properly (ex. here) but apart from that, no problems with PAE.

I've got 8 GB of RAM but actually use half of it for a RAMdisk:

0X22Idh.png

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I always try to build with nVidia and if the mobo has a nVidia chipset, so much the better.

This P4 is failing and I have another AMD board waiting in the wings for a case I ordered.

Not frelling around, I went and bought a G-series Seasonic PS [the X-series are still out of my

budget range] plus the cheap Orion in this machine is dropping its voltages, though it has outlived

the expensive Cooler Master it had and died one month out of warranty. I couldn't go without communication

at the time, so waiting for mail-order was out of the question, went to a bricks & mortar. Then I had issues,

after which I unplugged the DVD burner and it stabilised, so either there's a problem with the Philips burner

or it needs more juice from the 12 volt rail. I'm going to Google/Yahoo that but these days at 20 bucks a pop,

went to a new B & M and got a LG OEM for new build.

Even then I won't have a machine to experiment with and try my theory on [abject poverty] not until i save my

pennies (oops, Canada got rid of 'em :w00t: ) nickels and get another G-series Seasonic, only then

will it be my experimenting/spare box, as I have been using the PortableApps suite since it first came out,

then I had to learn how to migrate the Mozilla profile folders and .ini files as I buy new drives all the time.

So would prefer to stay in Windows, as I had to migrate from an Atari ST, a TT with a whopping 256MB

and a 16MB Falcon to Win'98 after there were no more dealers or active user clubs

any more. :(

While I can go to Linux for a true desktop experience ( been dual-booting 2000 with Mandriva's unique "Flash"

product) the product hasn't seen any upgrading since 2010 and I moved on to PCLinuxOS as they have an

active forum and monthly magazine as well as frequent updating for new hardware as well as backward compatibility.

The main drawback to that is I won't be able to use the PortableApps thumb drives and it is a little bit trickier [more work]

to migrate into and preserve the /home directories, so you can go on from where you left off install to each new install.

Plus will have to retire my favourite TV Capture Cards, which still work under W7,just use the compatibility tab, doesn't work

in VM. Though that's for 2020....by then I would have learned Myth-TV to use with the HDHomerun which I'm adding to the

first MyHD MDP-130 this summer.

:D

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To the best of my knowledge, there is no W2K AHCI SATA driver available for the Z77. I did find one that nLite accepts in the name of the C216 chipset, and, having integrated that driver into the OS CD, I attempted Windows 2000 installation. However, early in the install process I received the message, “The file iastor.sys is corrupted,” and that was the end of that. I received this error message whether I attempted the installation in IDE mode or AHCI mode BIOS settings. Therefore I am using IDE mode.

As far as I know, none of the Z77 motherboards come with a chipset driver that works with W2K; however, the Intel Chipset Device Software (INF Update Utility) dated 11/06/2012 (from the Intel website download center) works explicitly with Windows 2000 (among other OSs), and that is what I use. Not sure what I would have done without that one.

For video, I used the HD 3000 driver from blackwingcat, since the stock Biostar video driver doesn’t work with W2K. BWC’s driver installed cleanly and seems to run very well. As tomasz86 and Tommy have pointed out, should you want to try PAE in this type of setup, you may want to use a separate video card instead. I previously ran an X600 card in this machine, and it worked fine (it’s an older card and W2K drivers are available); these can be had for a fairly low price.

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To the best of my knowledge, there is no W2K AHCI SATA driver available for the Z77. I did find one that nLite accepts in the name of the C216 chipset, and, having integrated that driver into the OS CD, I attempted Windows 2000 installation. However, early in the install process I received the message, “The file iastor.sys is corrupted,” and that was the end of that. I received this error message whether I attempted the installation in IDE mode or AHCI mode BIOS settings. Therefore I am using IDE mode.

As far as I know, none of the Z77 motherboards come with a chipset driver that works with W2K; however, the Intel Chipset Device Software (INF Update Utility) dated 11/06/2012 (from the Intel website download center) works explicitly with Windows 2000 (among other OSs), and that is what I use. Not sure what I would have done without that one.

For video, I used the HD 3000 driver from blackwingcat, since the stock Biostar video driver doesn’t work with W2K. BWC’s driver installed cleanly and seems to run very well. As tomasz86 and Tommy have pointed out, should you want to try PAE in this type of setup, you may want to use a separate video card instead. I previously ran an X600 card in this machine, and it worked fine (it’s an older card and W2K drivers are available); these can be had for a fairly low price.

If it's not too much trouble, can you list the specs of your machine and what it has on the board as far as onboard adapters? But I'm curious just how awesome this machine really is. :)

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Intel i7-2700K Sandy Bridge (3.5GHz) CPU

Intel DC S3700 Taylorsville SATA III 100GB SSD (Intel Controller)

Intel 330 Series Maple Crest SATA III 180GB SSD

Western Digital RE4 SATA II 1TB 7200RPM Enterprise HDD

Biostar TZ77MXE Z77 Micro-ATX UEFI Motherboard

[Realtek RTL8111E - 10/100/1000 Controller]

[Realtek ALC892 8-channel Blu-ray audio]

G.SKILL DDR3 1333/10600 4x1GB 8-8-8-21 SDRAM

Cooler Master Silent Pro 700W Power Supply

Xigmatek LOKI CPU Cooler

LG Blu-ray Burner

ASUS DVD Burner

I do a lot of video encoding and standards conversions, up/down file conversions, and burning, so I build my computers along those lines. The two solid-state drives are connected to the two 6Gb/s connections on the board. The OS is on the 100GB drive (which is otherwise written to as little as possible); files are moved to and from the secondary SSD, or stored longer term on the RE4 (normally my secondary drive is a spinner, but I’m conducting an informal speed/durability experiment by using this 180GB SSD for the copying and transfer of these large video files I deal with). I create aligned partitions on all my solid-state drives using the diskpart function of the Vista Repair Disk (Vista Recovery Disk), and I format only 80%-90% of the space on the SSDs.

One of the nice things about this Biostar motherboard is that it’s not very expensive, at under a hundred, for a Z77. At least it shows you don’t have to spend upwards of three hundred to make a Sandy Bridge run at high speed. Unlike other brands, Biostar gives you drivers for the audio and the LAN, which is a good start toward eliminating the yellow question marks in device manager. Other Biostar models (for instance their ATX version) use the same drivers, and would probably work as well. Other brands of the Z77 motherboard may also be workable with Windows 2000, it’s just that I’ve never heard anyone say so, or tried any of them myself.

Do you know much about pagefile setup? I thought I had it all figured out with mechanical drives, and that took some study. Then I began using SSDs. It seems like every rule in the book (for RPM drives) is tossed out. Whatever applies to HDDs (e.g. “remember to defragment often”) is wrong for SSDs (e.g. “never defragment an SSD”). Formerly, I would put a large pagefile of fixed size on the OS RPM drive, and also create a small partition at the head of the secondary RPM drive, to also put a large pagefile of fixed size there. Now I’m not so sure how to handle this with an SSD, where so often it’s the opposite. I may just let Windows vary the pagefile size, as it does by default, since the SSD won’t really fragment because of it, the way a HDD does.

Edited by bluebolt
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Apparently Windows 2000 not only works with modern hardware, it doesn’t even hold things back. No wonder adherents love this operating system; it’s lean, fast and uncluttered, relatively free of the burdensome “features” of other, less elegant, OSs. It’s almost as if it were designed merely for doing the job at hand.

It seems you've discovered why I like 2000 so much. It's lean, mean and gets the job done without a bunch of useless fluff. :thumbup

PAE works, see the attached. PCI-E cards can really eat into the available RAM, without PAE I would only have about 3.1GB available.

I do also have another AMD system with a Phenom II X6 1100T.

post-375409-0-15016400-1365565106_thumb.

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To the best of my knowledge, there is no W2K AHCI SATA driver available for the Z77. I did find one that nLite accepts in the name of the C216 chipset, and, having integrated that driver into the OS CD, I attempted Windows 2000 installation. However, early in the install process I received the message, "The file iastor.sys is corrupted," and that was the end of that. I received this error message whether I attempted the installation in IDE mode or AHCI mode BIOS settings. Therefore I am using IDE mode.

As far as I know, none of the Z77 motherboards come with a chipset driver that works with W2K; however, the Intel Chipset Device Software (INF Update Utility) dated 11/06/2012 (from the Intel website download center) works explicitly with Windows 2000 (among other OSs), and that is what I use. Not sure what I would have done without that one.

For video, I used the HD 3000 driver from blackwingcat, since the stock Biostar video driver doesn't work with W2K. BWC's driver installed cleanly and seems to run very well. As tomasz86 and Tommy have pointed out, should you want to try PAE in this type of setup, you may want to use a separate video card instead. I previously ran an X600 card in this machine, and it worked fine (it's an older card and W2K drivers are available); these can be had for a fairly low price.

Thank you, I think you posted in my z77 thread, i got the same "The file iastor.sys is corrupted", so I gave up for now. The AMD 990FX works much better, including USB 3,0, ASMedia 6 GB SATA, 8-core CPU and superior fan control. Check my thread on "Sabertooth", it's a straightforward install, no need for trickery. I still don't understand how win2k can use more than 4 GB memory, and wireless is still win2k's Achilles heel. Also Win2k Disk Management creates misaligned partitions with new disk technologies, and I'm concerned that the w2k AHCI driver may not be fully compatible with newer disks.

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@tomasz86

I’ve noticed that Windows 2000 limits the size of my pagefile to 4092MB (even as it suggests a higher number). Does PAE affect the maximum pagefile size? In other words, in a setup like you show in post #7, is your pagefile size limit still 4GB?

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