Computer Science Canada

Question about CPU and Video cards....common... help please!

Author:  the_short1 [ Fri Apr 23, 2004 12:44 pm ]
Post subject:  Question about CPU and Video cards....common... help please!

hey all.... i just got a new (old) computer...

question: sometimes my PC reports my speed differently on startup (rite b4 it tests ram...) its a pent 1, 166 MHz Processor... but it says its 150 MHZ lots of the time... and sometimes it shows it as 133MHZ.... this means my CPU is failing dont it??? or am i mistaken....???

second question: will adding a second video card to my PC be beneficial...

rite now i have a cyrus 2MB video card... will adding a second video card (i have a empty slot for PCI...) give me more video memeory... even though a monitor is not connected to the second one ???

NOTE: i think the second one is also 2MB... not shure.... but its a s3 TRIO64 something rather... *** i tried it... but in windows it didn't say the amount of video memory... ... but i got it after requesting a 2MB or so video card from this guy that i met while i got free comp....


THANKS!!!!!!...

Author:  Dan [ Fri Apr 23, 2004 1:18 pm ]
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i dont think adding a second vid card like that will add the memory together and even if it did it is only 4mb witch will not help much consdiering the new games now need 128mb.

as for CPU, it sounds like there is a seting wrong in the BISO or a switch on the mother borad. alougth i am not shure about this stuff i am more in to compsci then comp enegering:roll:

Author:  the_short1 [ Fri Apr 23, 2004 2:01 pm ]
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and i though ude be the one ....... .... yea... 4 MB is a big diff over 2 MB....
not like i going to play wc3 or anything on it Rolling Eyes Sad
only old school games like AOE 2 + expansion... Doom 1,2,TNT,plutonia....quake1... .starcraft Broodwar....turing... Roller Coaster Tycoon 1****i now got a NON-BURNED version ... guess what... it was from a cerieal box Sad Laughing **remember how i disbeleived that... well... i was wrong... *** i got it for free at a computer recycling event... and it was in one of those envelopes... SmileSmileSmile ... and of course... tons of TUNES... and p0rn Wink
.
i will be getting a new comp with 3d card etc but thats for the rec room Sad .... this one i got is for my room Smile i will be putting together my new (old) comp and my older (old) comp to make a good one Smile... CANT WAIT TILL JUNE...


hmmm.... ill check out my BIOS..... was working good last nite and this morning,..... at the momment each time i start up it says 133... so .... windows freezes on startup....

BIOS checking.... hmmm..... mite just reset to defaults... that seems easier... Smile

i think that may be the problem.... i though it was video card *** i have good ram... i tested with memtest.... but i think it may be the CPU that makes it not work... Sad**** i tested with 2 diff video cards....

o yea... my comp freezes on the 'starting windows 98' screen.... like maybe 50 % of the time Sad... if u think u know how to fix dat.... and if it works... ill give ya some bits... <<<<notice large amount i have Smile Razz not all... .. but ill give some...


seems to startup nice when it says 166.....
can startup 50-75% of time at 150
1% if it says 133..

and it ocasionally **not very often freezes in windows... *not due to too much open.... maybe it freezes cuz the CPU speed shifted.. i dont know..


http://www.memtest.org <<FREE software for checking ram... *** it makes a dos BOOTABLE floppy.... or a bootable ISO... or... a .exe.... ur choice.... but i think its all in DOS...... that does tons and tons of different RAM tests.... ***WICKED**** and it works GREAT!!!


If anyone can help me .... that would be awsome...

Author:  roer [ Sun Apr 25, 2004 11:06 am ]
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That would never work....unless you wrote a piece of software that collaborated the processing of both those cards

Author:  Raugrist [ Sun Apr 25, 2004 12:52 pm ]
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the_short1 wrote:
http://www.memtest.org <<FREE software for checking ram... ***

Pfft, wouldn't you rather be able to check your MHz?

Author:  the_short1 [ Sun Apr 25, 2004 6:26 pm ]
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that link no work Sad


Free program to run in DOS to check CPU??? !!!! MUST HAVE!!! cuz i think my CPU is failing on upstairs comp...
.
PLEASE POST LINK if u have...

Author:  Raugrist [ Sun Apr 25, 2004 7:00 pm ]
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Are you sure it didn't work? Because it worked fine for me... I've gone there many times without any problem.

Author:  the_short1 [ Mon Apr 26, 2004 9:09 am ]
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still no work... and this time i tried at shcool...


its a picture???/

what about a CPU testing prog???

Author:  shorthair [ Mon Apr 26, 2004 9:51 am ]
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LEts get one thing straight about the video card , you ould have a 512 meg vieo cad and not have it run doom ( im serious )

people get very cuaght up with the memory , its the core speed and the clock speed that matters , you know the numbers on hte box like radeon 8700 and 9800 , having 4 meg of ram wont help you if your speeds are still to slow ot run the game , the video card has its own processor ( core ) and that needs to be fast enough to render and run the game , so dont think that 2 slow video cards make an alright video card

i can run 128 meg minimum games with my 64 meg ,cause its a very high end 64 meg video card , its a nVidia Quadro , and they blow other cards away , so i hope we all learned a little somthign about video cards

Author:  the_short1 [ Mon Apr 26, 2004 2:25 pm ]
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why not run doom???? dooms FUN!!!

but... i dont got the money.,.. and a 512 MEG card wont work worth SH1T on a pent 1...


im getting a GOOD computer... with good video card... in JUNE...
for downstairs...*rec room

yes of course its speed not mem that matters most..... but mem does matter...

this computer (with the issues) is for my room so i can play without anoyances.... and so i dont have to have family CRAP on there... *** also so i can have good music...** winamp RADIO rocks/...

what i really need is to know if having the two video cards will work... and... will it help increase video memory...??? thx
** cuz my windows is freezes (without anything running).. and i think its video card (and some others i talked to think it is too) cuz i got good ram


*** cuz without enough video memory windows does crash ***happened downstairs comp... cuz i used to have a 1MB video card and if i ran SC and AVG .. monitor would go into 3primary colors and make bunch of lines... so i got a 2.25 MB now:)


so having like 4MB would be a good improvement...

Author:  shorthair [ Mon Apr 26, 2004 3:20 pm ]
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did you not read my post at all

THe short said : i wish i could afford a 512 meg , or somthing like that

DIDNT YOU READ MY POST

its not about hte memory ,do you not understnd it , i made good referance as to why , and yes you could manufacture a 1024 meg card that ran no games what soever , Please re read my previous post , and try to understand what really drives the video card

Author:  the_short1 [ Tue Apr 27, 2004 4:01 pm ]
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well... for ur crappy speeling.... **i did that on purpose hehe..
i though 'ould' was should... but now that i re-read.... could is better..

i thoguh u were saying... u should have a 512 MEg video card and dont run doom...

hrmm.... but....
.
u could have a 512 MEg video and it wont be able to run doom sounds a bit better.,.


blah Razz i cant read... and u cant write... us compsciers are DOOMED..

i fully understand its speed more important then mem.. did long time ago..

but i was just stating that i wish i could afford some HOT sh1t video card like that **if it was fast....



srry shorthair..

can u please answer my question cuz u seem pretty knowledgable on the subject..


can i have 2 video cards in at once, and will it boost my video memory ** in this case... speed is not the issue.... i belive its cuz the memory is being overflown...


second... do u think my CPU is failing because it keeps showing up as different ammount..

and recently... it once showed up as a 120 MHZ even though its 166MHZ Processor...
or could it be power supply??? im a uber hardware :newbie:
*** i can change hd's and ram and etc... just dont ask me tecnical stuff Sad


thx... cuz these issues suck hard.. ( i go to play SC, or AOE2 and it locks up... and i dont get to save..... Sad)..... it also has frozen on just moving a desktop icon... Sad*with nothing else running..

Author:  shorthair [ Wed Apr 28, 2004 2:41 pm ]
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no it wot ork , everything is controlled by one card ,thats why you disable your onboard chip when you buy a agp or pci one. The cpu will ask the video card to process data , it dosnet jknow how to deal wit h2 , it would have to give some calculations to one and a few to th other then put them togeter to get an answer , computers were never esigned to take advantage of that ,a dula g5 could in theory do it , but this time short your out of luck, tw ould slow you down actually if it were possible , casu e the amount of time taken for things to get done would beterrible one card would wait for the other to do its job so it could tart its own , youor actually halfing your performance , And it wont give your double memory anyway if you did it , just 2 eperate sticks of 2 meg , it cant break a 4 meg file into 2 peices for 2 different cards , it would split the file and feed it in pats to one card , IM geting lost in my words , i know how it works but i cant explain it ery well , it jsut wont work especially the fct that they are realy old cards

Author:  Raugrist [ Wed Apr 28, 2004 4:33 pm ]
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Are you sure that each card would get some work to do and then put it all together? That doesn't make much sense considering the graphics card does whatever work it needs and then sends the image to the monitor. But there's another reason why it wouldn't work, can you connect one monitor to two graphics cards? No, but I think that might be how dual monitor systems are set up.

Author:  the_short1 [ Wed Apr 28, 2004 7:27 pm ]
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hmm... cuz ive heard of having more then one video card in a system..

maybe it was from a dual monitor PC... Sad

oo... i saw this one PC... it had 3 monitors.. it was at radio shack....ooo... it was SOOOO nice..

screen res: 2500x1000 or something like that... and it was a flat screen..
it woulda been cooler if u could have 3 seperate things running.... like in the matrix... Smile.



Under windows hardware profiles... it says...
Video Adapters <<s .....

but that could be nothing... but i though i wuld point that out..


my though was...

the CPU would send all stuff to the MAIN video card (the one with the monitor) and if that card ran out of memory (only 2MB) then instead of freezing or reseting or crashing etc.... it would overflow anyextra commands to the second video card.... and once the MAIN one is not so full.. it would feed the data to it...

cuz.... like one of my previous post;s mentioned... **b4 when i had a 1MB video card on downstairs comp... the screen would grid off (verticle lines only) of the 3 primary colors... whenever i had SC and NORTON running at same time.... so i sent it back and they gave me a 2.25 MB video card and now it dont do that...


hmm.... i'll do a quick in google.... but i think u two are right Sad unfortunately... Sad


Thanks....

Author:  Raugrist [ Wed Apr 28, 2004 8:40 pm ]
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OK, why don't you just upgrade to a decent video card? You can probably get a nice 32MB card for 50 cents. Well, maybe that's an exagerration, but now that we're up to 128MB+ (I use 128 as the example just because it's what I have), you can get the older ones much cheaper if you can find them. Check your paper.

Author:  the_short1 [ Thu Apr 29, 2004 11:22 am ]
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yea... well... i dont think a huge video card will work a sh1ty pent 1 too well..

plus i dont want to spend money..



*** i posted my question at dev hardware forums ... so... yea...


but...
i think i mite just wait till june... *** i getting a wicked comp for downstairs..


then i will take the video card (2.5MB <<<also has goo d res and stuff...) from the current downstairs comp... then put that in my room comp... Smile

Author:  roer [ Thu Apr 29, 2004 2:08 pm ]
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Who the hell would put 512MB on a video card with sub-standard clock/mem speeds =P The memory is simply for loading textures and such, the more textures and the higher the resoloution the more memory is required on a video card.

Author:  the_short1 [ Thu Apr 29, 2004 2:46 pm ]
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yea... i finaly found out the memory of my second video card... this time it acually showed up in properties in windows... **i just put it into comp again..


its only 1MB!!!! sad... plus it cant do True Color 24bit..... and can only do 640x480...800x600....1000x800 res... **i dont know exact...
SAD!..

the other one that i have for upstairs comp can do the 1152x823 res... and can do the highcolor on that...
**sucks... true color only works on the 620x480 res...


my one downstairs...
2.25 MB...
can do high color 26 bit, true color 24 bit ...
on 640x480...800x600....1024x780....1152x823...1280x1024
**some of those may be off a bit..
also... it has an Internal CPU speed of 135 MHZ !!!! fasta then my fricking downstairs comp 120%% Sad.... .**upstairs comp is 166 Razz

but yea... its a pretty dam sweet 2.25 MB video card... Razz dontcha think??
Tseng Labs... something something / something something PCI


**i will be taking that later Wink
june... june... june..



*** yes... i could just buy a new 10 Mb video card... that ran at like 500 MHZ... but Razz...... me dont want to buy.... i rather buy my linksys router and GTA vice city for PS2 !Razz **only have 100$


............ yea.... who would want a 512 MB video card tho...
it would be so fricking HOT inside ur comp... ude need a fan just for ur vid card Razz


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