Reinstalling WindowsXP?
Discussion
I have been advised to do a few things before splashing out on a new AGP card, and one of them is to reinstall my operating system.
And partition my hard drive into tow separates (one half all my data, and the other windows).
Can anyone give me any advice on where I would start on these two procedures I know d1ck all about?
Many thanks
Cad
And partition my hard drive into tow separates (one half all my data, and the other windows).
Can anyone give me any advice on where I would start on these two procedures I know d1ck all about?
Many thanks
Cad
I would start by questioning the advice to reinstall your OS when it's currently working.
Run ccleaner, empty out the prefetch cache and then defrag it and it should start to fly again.
The only reason I can think of that may necessitate reinstalling is if you've run out of space on the C drive.
Run ccleaner, empty out the prefetch cache and then defrag it and it should start to fly again.
The only reason I can think of that may necessitate reinstalling is if you've run out of space on the C drive.
Step 1: Locate a bat. Baseball is preferred but cricket will surfice. Under no circumstances use a Rounders bat or you will be forever labelled a 'girlyman'.
Step 2: Locate the faux-geek who told you this pile of piffle.
Step 3: Begin percussive debugging of his or her cerebrum (i.e. beat em' around the head with the bat).
Upgrading a graphics card is fairly painless. But can be slightly complex depending on what's in there already. If it's an old machine and/or brought on the cheap (i.e. one of Dells specials 18 months ago say) open up the case and make sure it has an AGP slot.
An AGP slot can be identified by matching some of the following criteria. It might be brown. It will be the first slot on the motherboard. It will be further back than the PCI slots (which are white in colour). It may or may not have an existing card in it (this will be easy to spot as your montior is bolted in to one end of it). If you see the card straddling two sockets, one which roughly matches the above and one that is about 1 - 2cm long, white in colour and has two very small slots in it. You have PCI-Express, dance happily and congratulate yourself on a wise, future proof purchase all those months ago.
If you do not have an AGP slot then your using what is termed an IGP (Integrated Graphics Processor) chip and your upgrade path is effectivley zero. True you can fit a PCI crapichs card but... yeah. Hmm... You want to replace your Austin Maxi with a Reliant eh?
We will continue on the understanding you have AGP and not PCI-Express. Got it? Good.
Jog, run, walk, drive but do NOT skip (again forever labelled 'girlyman') to your local PC World/Novatech or preferred internet retailer. Tell them you would like an AGP graphics card and they will point you at the various options. If, you have visited PC World and the sales gimp points you at a mass of boxes with the words "PCI-Express" on them feel free to debug him as well, your machine does not have PCI-Express and can not use these cards.
But an Nvidia unit. ATi might look sexier but Nvidia will save you time and hassle.
Leave store. Return to store. Pay for merchandise. Leave store. Return home.
If your current card is made by ATi then debug yourself for the woeful purchase all those months ago. Fire up Windows and uninstall anything and everything to do with ATi that is mentioned in Add/Remove Programs. Reboot Windows. If it is freaking out about not knowing what the graphics card is then your mission has been sucsessful. Drink a cold beverage.
Open the side panel and look at the current card. Unscrew the one screw that is holding the face plate down and lift the card out. Dance around. Turn computer OFF. Remove card.
Unpack the Nvidia card your purchased and plug it in to the vacant hole. Connect any additional power connectors that are required. Replace screw. Swear. Rescue screw from annoying space underneath newly installed graphics card. Replace screw.
Connect everything. Press power button. Did it explode? If so you have done something wrong. Something very very wrong. The correct purchase was an Nvidia graphics card. Not 2Lbs of SEMTEX and detonator. Windows should now be loaded and complaining loudly about the new hardware, tell it to screw off.
Insert the CDROM that came with the card. Remove CDROM from inquisitive child/cat/gerbil. Insert CDROM in to CD-Drive on computer. Install drivers. Reboot when prompted. Ta Da!
Step 2: Locate the faux-geek who told you this pile of piffle.
Step 3: Begin percussive debugging of his or her cerebrum (i.e. beat em' around the head with the bat).
Upgrading a graphics card is fairly painless. But can be slightly complex depending on what's in there already. If it's an old machine and/or brought on the cheap (i.e. one of Dells specials 18 months ago say) open up the case and make sure it has an AGP slot.
An AGP slot can be identified by matching some of the following criteria. It might be brown. It will be the first slot on the motherboard. It will be further back than the PCI slots (which are white in colour). It may or may not have an existing card in it (this will be easy to spot as your montior is bolted in to one end of it). If you see the card straddling two sockets, one which roughly matches the above and one that is about 1 - 2cm long, white in colour and has two very small slots in it. You have PCI-Express, dance happily and congratulate yourself on a wise, future proof purchase all those months ago.
If you do not have an AGP slot then your using what is termed an IGP (Integrated Graphics Processor) chip and your upgrade path is effectivley zero. True you can fit a PCI crapichs card but... yeah. Hmm... You want to replace your Austin Maxi with a Reliant eh?
We will continue on the understanding you have AGP and not PCI-Express. Got it? Good.
Jog, run, walk, drive but do NOT skip (again forever labelled 'girlyman') to your local PC World/Novatech or preferred internet retailer. Tell them you would like an AGP graphics card and they will point you at the various options. If, you have visited PC World and the sales gimp points you at a mass of boxes with the words "PCI-Express" on them feel free to debug him as well, your machine does not have PCI-Express and can not use these cards.
But an Nvidia unit. ATi might look sexier but Nvidia will save you time and hassle.
Leave store. Return to store. Pay for merchandise. Leave store. Return home.
If your current card is made by ATi then debug yourself for the woeful purchase all those months ago. Fire up Windows and uninstall anything and everything to do with ATi that is mentioned in Add/Remove Programs. Reboot Windows. If it is freaking out about not knowing what the graphics card is then your mission has been sucsessful. Drink a cold beverage.
Open the side panel and look at the current card. Unscrew the one screw that is holding the face plate down and lift the card out. Dance around. Turn computer OFF. Remove card.
Unpack the Nvidia card your purchased and plug it in to the vacant hole. Connect any additional power connectors that are required. Replace screw. Swear. Rescue screw from annoying space underneath newly installed graphics card. Replace screw.
Connect everything. Press power button. Did it explode? If so you have done something wrong. Something very very wrong. The correct purchase was an Nvidia graphics card. Not 2Lbs of SEMTEX and detonator. Windows should now be loaded and complaining loudly about the new hardware, tell it to screw off.
Insert the CDROM that came with the card. Remove CDROM from inquisitive child/cat/gerbil. Insert CDROM in to CD-Drive on computer. Install drivers. Reboot when prompted. Ta Da!
Sarah. Been there, done that in 2003. 
NEXT
Thats why there is a NVidia GeForce FX5600(256mgRAM) in there, and not the crappy one I got from Dell.
I phoned Gainward, and they are the ones who politely said it may not be the AGP card that is crashing Medal Of Honor and my PC. So do a few things first, before buying hardware. One of which was the XP install. Also memcheck, or taking the tower into a local pc shop to give it a 2-3 day health check. What a fu%*ing pain...
Thanks for the witty reply though. Thoroughly entertaining. And I do value your opinion.
Cad
NEXT Thats why there is a NVidia GeForce FX5600(256mgRAM) in there, and not the crappy one I got from Dell.
I phoned Gainward, and they are the ones who politely said it may not be the AGP card that is crashing Medal Of Honor and my PC. So do a few things first, before buying hardware. One of which was the XP install. Also memcheck, or taking the tower into a local pc shop to give it a 2-3 day health check. What a fu%*ing pain...
Thanks for the witty reply though. Thoroughly entertaining. And I do value your opinion.
Cad
Sisoft Sandra
Should have a feature limited demo version. Good enough to run a thrash test on your system and report any oddities.
Personally, I'd also throw on a demo of something else any other game. If it plays fine (within the limits of your old Gfx card obviously) then you know it's got to be MoH that's going ape for whatever reason. I'm not sure but I think MoH had one or two bad patches, but I think we done this over in the Compy Games section so that should be golden now
If Sandra doesn't spot anything and another game works flawlessly then I'd suggest uninstalling MoH and reinstalling from scratch. If the whole system is unstable then and only then is blitzing Windows worth while.
Should have a feature limited demo version. Good enough to run a thrash test on your system and report any oddities.
Personally, I'd also throw on a demo of something else any other game. If it plays fine (within the limits of your old Gfx card obviously) then you know it's got to be MoH that's going ape for whatever reason. I'm not sure but I think MoH had one or two bad patches, but I think we done this over in the Compy Games section so that should be golden now
If Sandra doesn't spot anything and another game works flawlessly then I'd suggest uninstalling MoH and reinstalling from scratch. If the whole system is unstable then and only then is blitzing Windows worth while.
Caduceus said:
I have been advised to do a few things before splashing out on a new AGP card, and one of them is to reinstall my operating system.
And partition my hard drive into tow separates (one half all my data, and the other windows).
Can anyone give me any advice on where I would start on these two procedures I know d1ck all about?
Many thanks
Cad
And partition my hard drive into tow separates (one half all my data, and the other windows).
Can anyone give me any advice on where I would start on these two procedures I know d1ck all about?
Many thanks
Cad
upgraded from an ATI radeon 9800 pro to a Nvidia 7600GT, tried the option of removing the ati software and installing the nvidia software, card performed so badly and was about to send it back, when reliased the hassle factor. tech forum gave various reasons why full format would be good and it is a very good idea
most pc's have 2 ide ports, i use the first one for 2 ide drives and the 2nd for 2 dvd's - might be easier for you to simply buy a second drive for games and documents etc rather than mess around with partitions
windows and program files taking up around 20 GB for me, games a lot more and i have 2 sata drives for bulk data
advantage of 2 drives is that if one fails, u dont lose all data
buy a dvd burner and backup stuff u not want to lose on a monthly basis
idea of a re-install is to have the new agp card plugged in along with the driver software, no point wiping it until u have the card
Caduceus said:
Scraggles said:
tech forum gave various reasons why full format would be good and it is a very good idea
I assume a 'full format' is re-installing the OS?
Yup, if you want a 'clean' install. Be aware, it only fixes the 'problem' sometimes. If you format then reinstall the same drivers you'll frequently end up with the same problem in the end.
BliarOut said:
Caduceus said:
Scraggles said:
tech forum gave various reasons why full format would be good and it is a very good idea
I assume a 'full format' is re-installing the OS?
Yup, if you want a 'clean' install. Be aware, it only fixes the 'problem' sometimes. If you format then reinstall the same drivers you'll frequently end up with the same problem in the end.
Although I still stand by my opinion that if the system is fundamentally stable (i.e. it boots, tootles around the net, plays other games and runs other software without falling on its arse) then reformatting will ultimatley lead you back here going "Well that didn't work... Oi! Where's all me stuff gone????"
To be honest everything Caduceus is saying seems to point the finger at MoH and only that peice of software. I'd try reinstalling that and DX before I rebuilt the whole system
ThePassenger said:
BliarOut said:
Caduceus said:
Scraggles said:
tech forum gave various reasons why full format would be good and it is a very good idea
I assume a 'full format' is re-installing the OS?
Yup, if you want a 'clean' install. Be aware, it only fixes the 'problem' sometimes. If you format then reinstall the same drivers you'll frequently end up with the same problem in the end.
Although I still stand by my opinion that if the system is fundamentally stable (i.e. it boots, tootles around the net, plays other games and runs other software without falling on its arse) then reformatting will ultimatley lead you back here going "Well that didn't work... Oi! Where's all me stuff gone????"
To be honest everything Caduceus is saying seems to point the finger at MoH and only that peice of software. I'd try reinstalling that and DX before I rebuilt the whole system
I'm with you 100%. I consider reinstalling an OS is a personal insult
ThePassenger said:
BliarOut said:
I'm with you 100%. I consider reinstalling an OS is a personal insult
It's like waving a white flag! What next we start wearing stripy T-shirts and eating soft cheese?
You forgot the eating garlic
Reinstalling a functional OS is an admission of failure....
yeah 120gb boot drive, backed up most stuff - always forget some items, but then persoanl files never on boot drive, just some dopwnloads and some games etc....
full format via xp install and delete this partition and then full format, it helped massively with the agp card thingy
take the pc offline, ie pull out the net cable as u want to be offline whilst installing unless u want free virus a nd trojans
takes a few hours to format and have basic operation, maybe a full weekend day to reinstall the majority of the stuff u use, or u can fluff around and hope that the old card software is removed when it is not fully removed and waste twice as long
full format via xp install and delete this partition and then full format, it helped massively with the agp card thingy
take the pc offline, ie pull out the net cable as u want to be offline whilst installing unless u want free virus a nd trojans
takes a few hours to format and have basic operation, maybe a full weekend day to reinstall the majority of the stuff u use, or u can fluff around and hope that the old card software is removed when it is not fully removed and waste twice as long
ThePassenger said:
I'd try reinstalling that and DX before I rebuilt the whole system
Done the reinstalling thing already, and dxdiag, and up to date drivers, and up to date MOH patch, and windows defender, virus scan, registry clean, defrag, cleaned out fluff from agp card fan&grid.
I will try the booting from memcheck and Sandra. If they fail, its time to blow 170 quid on a new card.
BliarOut said:
I would start by questioning the advice to reinstall your OS when it's currently working.
Run ccleaner, empty out the prefetch cache and then defrag it and it should start to fly again.
The only reason I can think of that may necessitate reinstalling is if you've run out of space on the C drive.
Run ccleaner, empty out the prefetch cache and then defrag it and it should start to fly again.
The only reason I can think of that may necessitate reinstalling is if you've run out of space on the C drive.
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