Encrypter

Hi all im new to the TC, i hope this is the write place to write it, I hope i can get some opinions from some peeps.

Anyways, i recently built a new rig specs are :

AMD X2 4400 cpu
2 gig of crucial ram
geforce 7800 gtx
raptor 72 gig drive (has windows on it)

I think thats all i need to submit, anyways, i only have this one drive in for now, but im noticing something, im new to the raptor technology, but i was expecting it to go super fast etc, into windows and battlefield etc.

Windows loads ok, but not super fast, my work computer loads windows faster, and it has a slower HDD and the cpu is a AMD 3200 XP, with 512 ram

Im just confused and id like some opinions, as I would expect this new pc to loads windows in under 15 seconds or something, it has hardly anything on it and ive loaded the basic stuff, including battlefield (lol basics ).

Maybe i havent done something in bios, as a friend said an engineer sped his up by doing something in there. I dunno what else to say, it just doesnt seem super fast seen as i spent a bundle load on this new system.

please let me know, and make me feel welcome with love and tell me what you think

thanks

Legato895

i have 2 of the 38gb raptors all running sata and 1 180gb 7500rmp drive. im not quite sure what you were expecting from the raptors. these arn't 15k scsi or anything. yes, they are faster, but not by a great amount. what i did was raid 0 my 2 raptors which does make everything noticably faster (at least i think so) but its not like your booting off of ram or anything (my friend does and he gets bios to login in around 3 seconds)

do some googling for benchmarks, and im betting it will only be like a 10 or so % difference if that w/o raid.

__________________
|TG-Irr|Legato

Encrypter

well hold on a minute, you said you raided yours to 0, can you treat me like a baby cause im new to this lol.

and make sure im not booting with ram, how do you mean?

Im really interested in what you have to say cause you know what your talking about and i think im getting somewhere.

how can i tell though with what you are talking about.

I dunno how he got to bios to loggin in 3 seconds?

mine are 10k raptors btw, not sure i mentioned that.

perry

RAID = Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks

It has various levels depending on what you want to do.

RAID 0 and RAID 1 are the simplest and cheapest.

RAID 0 is sometimes called striping. You have two physical drives that act as one... so the computer can write one byte of a file to one drive and the next byte to the other drive. It wasn't originally part of the RAID definition because, well, there's nothing redundant to it. In theory, it speeds up your disk access. In practice, the speed up is debatable. In reality, when one drive dies you lose all your data! It's too bad that RAID 0 is so popuplar IMHO because not everyone understands the risks involved, but that's for another discussion Legato's two 36GB Raptors are combined to form one large 72GB drive.

RAID 1 is called mirroring. Whatever is written to one drive is also written to the other. So when one drive crashes you still have the data safe on the other.

If you wanna learn more about RAID, this will keep you busy for a while: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redunda...ependent_disks

IMO, the Raptor drives are probably not worth the price per gig any more since the newest SATA drives are pretty darn fast and can hold quite a bit more. But that's just me. They're still quality, fast drives.

How does the computer play games and do other stuff? That's more important than how fast it boots Windows.. I've turned off some services and shut off the eye candy on my XP installation to save on the RAM used.. but I pretty much only boot to Windows for gaming. I have a AMD64 3000+ and 1.5GB RAM.. it loads quick enough for me. I've noticed that I'm usually one of the first few people to get BF2 maps loaded up during round changes.

Encrypter

ok when i get a 5 min break ill read that article you sent me, I think im gettin confused or was, I thought raid and the raptor was totally diferent things, or scsi (scuzzy) forget the spelling there, i thought they were totally different.

I know what the raids are cause we use them at work, one fails, you throw another in, i wasnt aware they speed things up, maybe raptor is western digitals name for their raptor? I think so.

so maybe i need another to mirror it in order for it to fly like anything, and i wasnt aware that 2 36 gigs become one total 72 gig or watever, hmm or did I?

I think i thuoght it meant one 36 gig mirrored, if one days you throw another one in etc.

As for windows, i am concerned that it doesnt fly as it should have, like i said my work pc flys faster, and its a 7k drive, with LOTS more on it and 512k ram, the cpu is 3200xp

I mean this pc isnt nothing compared to my home one.

As for games, i cant really tell or dont know how to exaplain, what i mean, is that when u hit shortcut it takes a few secs to get bf2 image, and then another 4 seconds to go black screen and like another 10 seconds to get to log in (removed intros)

I just wanna know if im doing something wrong, or if i could do something, i mean the other dude said hes friend could load windows in 3 seconds, from boot to login, i mean what am i doing wrong, or i have the wrong drive.

Its gettin me down a bit, cause i havent upgraded in a year, and i cant really tell the difference, im only saying this because its a fresh install of windows, and normally when you do a fresh install with windows it normally flys anyways.

I really appreciate the advice and comments, keep em comming.

thanks again chaps.

btw guy from indiana what the hell areyou doing up, isnt it like 4 am there or something? lol

perry

The Raptor is just WD's line of 10,000 RPM SATA drives. Yes, they are different things.

What you have at work is probably a RAID 5 or something.. See the various levels mentioned in that article.

I don't think that striping 2 drives would solve the percieved slowness. Maybe try some of the tips and tricks listed here: http://www.tweakguides.com/BF2_1.html I can't think of anything obvious that you would have missed.. What motherboard do you have and did you get the latest drivers for everything?

I keep weird hours these days because I don't have a job

Encrypter

you lazy bum, na joke sorry.

Well i got a Asus Sli deluxe, ill try the tweak thing, i mean the bios is real slow, cause it has to check for satas every time, as my friend told me, its using silicon thingy, but it IS using the nvide controller.

I had my expert friend dial in to my machine, he checked everything, we did tests, he said anything looked ok , windows load bar (the start up with blue squares) takes like 5 loads, like goes 5 times or so.

I just heard of people that load windows much faster then me and have the same drive, kinda doestnt make sence.
my work friend says he has raptors on asus board (older board) and hes windows shoots up.

I upgraded drivers yesterday yes, nothing new, it does seem a bit quicker, wich applications and stuff, its SUCH a hard test, because its a fresh maching, so its real difficult for me to judge etc.

My work computre has no raid lol, its just one 120 gig hdd or something on standard IDE.

I think maybe it has something to do with the bios, but i dunno.

Myabe i havent installed it properly with windows, i mean im not sure if i did a full format, I think i did a quick one, you know the one before you stall windows etc.

I dunno what else to say, whats your address? ill ship my pc to you!

Legato895

i have the same board as you and the 5 bounces on the loading bar seems right. consider that your computer is much more advanced than what your using at work i would reckon, and has a lot more drivers to check, and the like. really, don't worry about it. my old school's dells booted up way faster, but they are running windows 98 for example. really, only get worried if your games are stuttering on you, kuz with the money you poured into that rig, you should have no problem for the foreseeable future






until unreal 3 rapes you O_o

__________________
|TG-Irr|Legato

Spyder

Yeah, See, How windows operates is inversly proportional to the amount of money you spent on your PC. The more you spent, the worse it gets .

Windows loading times are often random, but usually the prime factor in loadup time is the amount of crap installed that has to boot up or run as soon as windows comes online, not necissarily the hardware. At any rate, it's on the level of really doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things, so long as it's not taking 15 minutes to boot =P. If games load fast enough for you, don't worry about it.

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Celibacy is not Hereditary.
Everybody should believe in something - I believe I'll have another drink.
Happiness is like wetting your pants, everyone can see it but only you can feel the warmth.
Flying is easy, Just throw yourself at the ground and miss!

SilverStealth89

i would forget about the X2 i think its just flourish, go with like 3800, and for the drives idk but the raptors are just to expensive in my opinion. just get one semilarge drive and than an external one if you REALLY need it

Encrypter

Ok ive done a tiny bit of research, i wasnt too happy with it, but i did listen to a friend, he said the same things you guys were saying, and your right about the drivers, i suppose thats why it takes alot longer to boot up.

Anyways, yesterday i left a share program on, I work in IT Support so i know my stuff with computers and security, i had firewalls etc bla bla bla bla.

I left it on when i went to work, i came home, CPU was at nearly 100% all the time, didnt make sence i was like wats going on? is the dual core asleep or in my neighbours pc or something?

i thought sod this, i uninstalled it, done all the crap cleane softwares, run scans a few times, i loaded a DIFFERENT share program, and same thing, i never had this problem with my old pc, even when i exited the program it was like that.
I just found that strange, i got myself back to normal again, there was no real threats at all. My friend told me to do a pc bench mark 5.

He said I should get around 6000, guess what, 1750, common man something is up!

Can you guys tell me what you get?

warcriminal2

Originally you wanted to know why your new RAID set up didn't load windows faster than your work computer? Just remember that it will take a little longer for your system to load the raid drivers and enable the drives at start up.

I run almost the exact system as you and there is no doubt in my mind that reducing the "bottlenecks" in your system will give you a faster system and better online gaming experience. At map change I am usually one of the first ones loaded in and consistantly get very high frame rates and I haven't even overclocked it yet. You have a very nice system there but it might take a little while to get everything all dialed in...your gonna love it

my specs
SiSoftware Sandra
Processor
Model : AMD Athlon(tm) 64 Processor 3000+
Speed : 1.80GHz
Model Number : 3200 (estimated)
Cores per Processor : 1 Unit(s)
Threads per Core : 1 Unit(s)
Internal Data Cache : 64kB Synchronous, Write-Back, 2-way set, 64 byte line size
L2 On-board Cache : 512kB ECC Synchronous, Write-Back, 16-way set, 64 byte line size

Mainboard
Bus(es) : ISA AGP PCI IMB USB FireWire/1394 i2c/SMBus
MP Support : 1 Processor(s)
MP APIC : Yes
System BIOS : American Megatrends Inc. 1014.006
Mainboard : ASUSTeK Computer Inc. A8V Deluxe
Total Memory : 2GB DDR-SDRAM

Chipset 1
Model : ASUSTeK Computer Inc K8T880Pro CPU to PCI Bridge
Front Side Bus Speed : 2x 1000MHz (2000MHz data rate)

Chipset 2
Model : Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) Athlon 64 / Opteron HyperTransport Technology Configuration
Front Side Bus Speed : 2x 1000MHz (2000MHz data rate)
Total Memory : 2GB DDR-SDRAM
Memory Bus Speed : 2x 163MHz (326MHz data rate)

Video System
Desktop Monitors/Panels : 2
Monitor/Panel : 70" Projection
Monitor/Panel : Plug and Play Monitor
Adapter : NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT OC

Physical Storage Devices
Removable Drive : Floppy disk drive
Hard Disk : Maxtor 6B160P0 (153GB)
Hard Disk : Promise 2+0 Stripe/RAID0 SCSI Disk Device (69GB) WD RAPTOR
CD-ROM/DVD : TOSHIBA CD/DVDW SD-R5372 (CD 48X Rd, 48X Wr) (DVD 6X Rd, 6X Wr)

Logical Storage Devices
System (C : 69GB (54GB, 78% Free Space) (NTFS)
Bf2 cd 1 (D : 672MB (CDFS)
Storage (E : 153GB (89GB, 58% Free Space) (NTFS)

MultiMedia Device(s)
Device : Hauppauge WinTV 878/9 WDM Video Driver
Device : Hauppauge WinTV 878/9 WDM Aux Driver
Device : Realtek AC'97 Audio for VIA (R) Audio Controller

__________________
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chillin n' killin wit authoritaaaaa!!

Encrypter

thanks for the response dude, so what do you advice i do?

"You have a very nice system there but it might take a little while to get everything all dialed in...your gonna love it"

how you mean all dialed in?

I would like you guys to pay attention to the bench results, i was told i should be getting aroud 4000 - 6000

I got 1127 on first go, then 1725 cause i turnt off MSN, something is wrong.

He mentioned checking the bios frequencies or something, and maybe do windows again, not sure wat else to say, please ask me questions lol, i need help and want to get you all the facts so that you can have a better idea of whats going on here.

Could i get some of your bench marks guys?

onixxxxxxxx-barn

now, this maybe an extremely stupid and obvious question, but, are you sure you don't have a virus?

do you have any anti-virus up?

i dunno, like i said, may be an incredibly lame question, but i mean, i remember sasser and it varients, which did a number of things, but what i remember was the crippling artificial system lag. i could barely do anything because it artifically tied up my entire cpu

that might have been blaster.

i'm not really sure, really. one of thems. it was bad though.

might want to look into it though. haven't bothered benching in a while but i'm pretty sure my p4 3.2 / AGP 6800GT / 2gig 3200 gets around 4500 in '05; your killer rig should be smoking mine without breaking a sweat.

check it out if you can. got nothing to lose except time.

Spyder

Yeah, the only things I can think of that might affect it thusly:
Virus
Newest drivers not installed for all hardware (mobo, graphics, sound)
Bios not set right for the video card (APG setting set too low and System RAM is being used to compensate. It should be set to = the ram on your Video Card)


and your system should easily eclipse a 5000 bench in 3dmark05.

__________________
a.k.a. NinjaPirateAssassin
Celibacy is not Hereditary.
Everybody should believe in something - I believe I'll have another drink.
Happiness is like wetting your pants, everyone can see it but only you can feel the warmth.
Flying is easy, Just throw yourself at the ground and miss!