Hard Drive Reformat Advice

[Dry then Catch]

Alright so I've had this P4 Dell desktop that has been surprisingly robust and reliable  and robust since late 02.    I figure it has one last hurrah of a year before I give it to my parents.

I've upgraded it a bit since then.  I now run 2 gigs of RAM (though the spec said 1 max), upgraded to the fastest 478 pin processor supported by the motherboard, added another harddrive and bought a lower end Radeon graphics card that I soft overclocked.

I always clear the registry sometimes manually, check for programs hidden in startup or that take up unnecessary system resources and disabled all shitty Windows XP services.  All in all I've been a good owner.

But every computer needs a hard drive re-format now and again right?  I've done it on other computers plenty of times, but not one in which I've changed the hardware.

Can I just use the Dell restore disk with XP when I've
1)  added another harddrive,  changed a jumper setting I think
2)  changed the video card
3)  changed the CPU

Or should I just back up all my data and reformat from the BIOS?  What else do I need to be wary of? 

[Gamplayerx]

What else do I need to be wary of? 

eo000
the Dutch
brine shrimp
lifting with your back instead of your knees
bait and switch sales
The list goes on and on.  If my arms still worked, I'd keep typing.

[Dry then Catch]

What else do I need to be wary of? 

eo000
the Dutch
brine shrimp
lifting with your back instead of your knees
bait and switch sales
The list goes on and on.  If my arms still worked, I'd keep typing.

you had me at the second "0"

[BigDun]

Download the video drivers from Radeon and burn them to CD. Then, after you are sure you have all your data backed up, use the Dell XP install CD. It may not reformat your drive, but then again, it might. Then you'll have a blast reinstalling all of your applications.

[grace]

Alright so I've had this P4 Dell desktop that has been surprisingly robust and reliable  and robust since late 02.    I figure it has one last hurrah of a year before I give it to my parents.

I've upgraded it a bit since then.  I now run 2 gigs of RAM (though the spec said 1 max), upgraded to the fastest 478 pin processor supported by the motherboard, added another harddrive and bought a lower end Radeon graphics card that I soft overclocked.

I always clear the registry sometimes manually, check for programs hidden in startup or that take up unnecessary system resources and disabled all shitty Windows XP services.  All in all I've been a good owner.

and how do you soft overclock.......????   
nevermind !!

But every computer needs a hard drive re-format now and again right?  I've done it on other computers plenty of times, but not one in which I've changed the hardware.

Can I just use the Dell restore disk with XP when I've
1)  added another harddrive,  changed a jumper setting I think
2)  changed the video card
3)  changed the CPU

Or should I just back up all my data and reformat from the BIOS?  What else do I need to be wary of? 

[Dry then Catch]

grace did you ask how to overclock? 

[grace]

grace did you ask how to overclock? 

yes ...not that i would understand or have the time to devote, just curious.
i have yet to install my free agent....

i'm bartering for a laptop from my boss .....it's looking good!

[Dry then Catch]

grace did you ask how to overclock? 

yes ...not that i would understand or have the time to devote, just curious.
i have yet to install my free agent....

i'm bartering for a laptop from my boss .....it's looking good!

do you know what kind of card you have now?  Is it by ATI? 

[grace]

grace did you ask how to overclock? 

yes ...not that i would understand or have the time to devote, just curious.
i have yet to install my free agent....

i'm bartering for a laptop from my boss .....it's looking good!

do you know what kind of card you have now?  Is it by ATI? 

i have no clue....
tell me the concept of overclock, then i can decide if it's worth thinking about.

[Dry then Catch]

grace did you ask how to overclock? 

yes ...not that i would understand or have the time to devote, just curious.
i have yet to install my free agent....

i'm bartering for a laptop from my boss .....it's looking good!

do you know what kind of card you have now?  Is it by ATI? 

i have no clue....
tell me the concept of overclock, then i can decide if it's worth thinking about.

There are much more qualified professionals and amateurs here, to answer FYI

Basically any piece of processing hardware can be taken above its limits.  Like those rice rocket Honda Civics.  They mess with the engines factory settings to make it go faster.  They don't actually change any hardware.  There is a safe limit in which you can do this. 


Sometimes, overclocking is easy. Just download a modification program and adjust it like a control panel.  You will have to do some diagnostics to see what the limit is.  Worse comes to worse it will overheat and melt your card.

Sometimes you will have to manually replace the drivers  and then run the modification program (what I had to do).

and sometimes you have to actually override (or flash) the BIOS of the old card (not worth it).

If you have an ATI brand card, I can direct you to a program that does it rather easily. 

[BigDun]

grace did you ask how to overclock? 

yes ...not that i would understand or have the time to devote, just curious.
i have yet to install my free agent....

i'm bartering for a laptop from my boss .....it's looking good!

do you know what kind of card you have now?  Is it by ATI? 

i have no clue....
tell me the concept of overclock, then i can decide if it's worth thinking about.

There are much more qualified professionals and amateurs here, to answer FYI

Basically any piece of processing hardware can be taken above its limits.  Like those rice rocket Honda Civics.  They mess with the engines factory settings to make it go faster.  They don't actually change any hardware.  There is a safe limit in which you can do this. 


Sometimes, overclocking is easy. Just download a modification program and adjust it like a control panel.  You will have to do some diagnostics to see what the limit is.  Worse comes to worse it will overheat and melt your card.

Sometimes you will have to manually replace the drivers  and then run the modification program (what I had to do).

and sometimes you have to actually override (or flash) the BIOS of the old card (not worth it).

If you have an ATI brand card, I can direct you to a program that does it rather easily. 

FYI - Overclocking will void any warranty. The reason is that speed and heat are intrinsically linked. The faster it goes, the hotter it gets. The chips are rated a particular speed because one out of 1000 that came off the production line was tested safely at a particular speed. That doesn't mean that the other 999 couldn't be pushed faster, just that if you do try and run it faster, there is a much greater chance of burning it out.

It is much like trying to get extra light out of a 100w light bulb. You can do it by upping the voltage, but the life of the bulb won't be nearly as long.

[grace]

grace did you ask how to overclock? 

yes ...not that i would understand or have the time to devote, just curious.
i have yet to install my free agent....

i'm bartering for a laptop from my boss .....it's looking good!

do you know what kind of card you have now?  Is it by ATI? 

i have no clue....
tell me the concept of overclock, then i can decide if it's worth thinking about.

There are much more qualified professionals and amateurs here, to answer FYI

Basically any piece of processing hardware can be taken above its limits.  Like those rice rocket Honda Civics.  They mess with the engines factory settings to make it go faster.  They don't actually change any hardware.  There is a safe limit in which you can do this. 


Sometimes, overclocking is easy. Just download a modification program and adjust it like a control panel.  You will have to do some diagnostics to see what the limit is.  Worse comes to worse it will overheat and melt your card.

Sometimes you will have to manually replace the drivers  and then run the modification program (what I had to do).

and sometimes you have to actually override (or flash) the BIOS of the old card (not worth it).

If you have an ATI brand card, I can direct you to a program that does it rather easily. 

FYI - Overclocking will void any warranty. The reason is that speed and heat are intrinsically linked. The faster it goes, the hotter it gets. The chips are rated a particular speed because one out of 1000 that came off the production line was tested safely at a particular speed. That doesn't mean that the other 999 couldn't be pushed faster, just that if you do try and run it faster, there is a much greater chance of burning it out.

It is much like trying to get extra light out of a 100w light bulb. You can do it by upping the voltage, but the life of the bulb won't be nearly as long.

haaa
i am soo not doing any of that.... but i do have a friend, and that's what friends are for.
he plays at my computer and says ...wtf.

i make him fix everything because i can NEVER sit still that long.

[meredith]

What BigDun said. It's harder on your equipment when you overclock, but another key point is that unless you are a hardcore enthusiast, you'll only see marginal performance gains, because that's all you can do.

Overclocking really became popular (for computer nerds) when CPU vendors put out parts that were the same as higher-speed parts but forced to lower speed.  AMD did this with their Athlon chips. It's cheapest to mass-produce the chip itself the same for every speed but lock it to lower speed on the circuit board or chip package that it's installed on. So with those chips, you would basically change the connection between two rows of 5 dots to change the speed, and it wasn't operating the chip outside of its capabilities.

Another popular one was the Celeron 300A that ran at 450 easily. That was slightly different but the popularity of the overclock was again from buying a cheap part then kicking it up.

[Dry then Catch]

What BigDun said. It's harder on your equipment when you overclock, but another key point is that unless you are a hardcore enthusiast, you'll only see marginal performance gains, because that's all you can do.

Overclocking really became popular (for computer nerds) when CPU vendors put out parts that were the same as higher-speed parts but forced to lower speed.  AMD did this with their Athlon chips. It's cheapest to mass-produce the chip itself the same for every speed but lock it to lower speed on the circuit board or chip package that it's installed on. So with those chips, you would basically change the connection between two rows of 5 dots to change the speed, and it wasn't operating the chip outside of its capabilities.

Another popular one was the Celeron 300A that ran at 450 easily. That was slightly different but the popularity of the overclock was again from buying a cheap part then kicking it up.

yes both hatt and bd show their professional wisdom.  I overclock my card for the same reason; it supposedly the same model as a higher echelon card but intentionally locked out.  I would be to scared to do with a microprocessor.