skin: 1 2 3 4 |  Login | Join Dancetech |

dancetech articles

28-Mar-2024

Info-line:   [synths]    [sampler]    [drumbox]    [effects]    [mixers]     [mics]     [monitors]    [pc-h/ware]    [pc-s/ware]    [plugins]    -    [links]    [tips]


Build a Music PC - XP2000 - super-cheap!! [pt5]


Ask a question about this subject?

Post a question direct to our forums and get mailed when a reply is added!

There are 3  viewer comments posted to this page - Read

Add a comment

Author: admin
Date: 15-Feb-03





Build a budget 2000 Athlon XP music PC - Page 5 - WIN XP install.

Ok... I would recommend going with Windows XP - it uses a tad more resources than 98, but is way more stable and drivers are now done & dusted for most PC music products I'd recommend putting with this build anyways... XP is true 32bit OS and doesn't run on DOS... If you can afford it, get it!

XP is based on the NT core, and the normal way XP installs & works as default is with ACPI Power-Management & 'Plug & Play' switched ON - Power Management allows all sorts of things like automatic shutdown & wakeup etc etc... XP manages all the memory resources and address automaticaly with 'Plug & Play', allocating IRQ addresses to things like video & soundcards etc 'on the fly'.

Now the 'Plug & Play' works VERY well in XP... XP has way better memory management than previous Windows OS's - However, for a music PC, we might NOT want our IRQ's shared and managed by Windows as items like soundcards are critical to us... Normaly you'd run XP in 'Plug & Play' mode and all would be ok, but for some gamers and for music users, even WITH XP's better management of devices, conflicts can still occur...






'Standard PC' or Plug & Play' install mode?

I would recommend running a straight XP install & let XP manage your IRQ's...

I tried the XP 'Standard PC' install and whilst yes, i COULD set my IRQ for the soundcard in the BIOS, I had problems with the AGP port - The graphic's card would not install properly, and worse, eventualy, after re-booting XP at least 30 or 40 times whilst setting things up, eventualy when logging in, XP hung completely - The whole PC froze as soon as you'd typed the password and hit ENTER and the machine was starting to log on!

I tried a REPAIR install eventualy - Upon asking for the 'Administrator Password' (as XP does when doing a 'Repair'), XP would also freeze the PC completely as soon as I inputted the admin password and hit ENTER to continue the Repair.... So something was severly amiss - Before the things froze up, I tried a different AGP card, but that too whilst installing ok, didn't give a decent display - the screen image was distorted, with the screen edges being bowed and not nice & straight... So there seemed to be a problem with at least the graphic's card and most likely the network card too!

On the other hand, over the last four weeks I've had the previous 'NON Standard PC' Install of XP running, it has run fine, and Logic Platignum has behaved itself ok - (update: 7/5/03 - also installed & running fince since is Cubase SX, SONAR 2.2, PROJECT5 & REASON...





'Standard PC' install mode option

There is a way to install XP in 'STANDARD PC MODE' which sets XP to run without 'Plug & Play', and theoreticaly this will let us assign our IRQ's for the PCI slot's MANUALY in the BIOS...

On this motherboard used in this build, the manual shows the 'shared' PCI slots (which share memory addresses), and the slot we want our soundcard in is SLOT 3, the 3rd one down from the AGP slot... In Windows 98 setup if you set the BIOS to: 'NON PLUG & PLAY OS', you can simply boot into your BIOS anytime, go to the PCI settings and see the list of PCI slots (1-5) and you can then simply set slot-3 to IRQ5 (an IRQ most soundcards like to be assigned to) - If the selected IRQ causes problems you simply re-enter the BIOS and set the IRQ for slot-3 to a different IRQ such as IRQ 9 etc.

If Windows 98 is setup with the BIOS set to : 'PLUG & PLAY OS', then Windows manages the IRQ resources automaticaly, and does rather a crap job too compared to XP... Setup like that, you cannot manualy adjust IRQ's in Windows or in the BIOS, and if your soundcard ends up on a problem IRQ you cannot change it.... hmmmm!

We MIGHT want XP to be setup in NON 'Plug & Play' mode, so we can MANUALY assign the IRQ we want to the soundcard, but XP doesn't give a crap wether you have turned 'Plug & Play O/S' to [NO] in the BIOS... it 'runs tings' anyways with a normal XP install! - Microsoft actualy recommend turning 'Plug & Play O/S' OFF in the BIOS!

Microsoft page about 'Plug & Play O/S' settings in BIOS for XP

But... there is a switch when installing XP we can use to over-ride the 'normal' install...

First let's do all the prep in the BIOS prior to installing XP as EITHER: 'PLUG & PLAY' or 'STANDARD PC'

These BIOS settings will be the same cos MSoft recommend turning OFF 'Plug & Play O/S' setting anyways.












BIOS SETTING - 'POWER MANAGEMENT' DISABLED

First up we want to set POWER MANAGEMENT in the BIOS to 'OFF' or 'DISABLED' - Microsoft actualy recommends this, as XP will actualy ignore the POWER MANAGEMENT setting in the BIOS! - so this needs to be set to DISABLED.



First enter the BIOS and using the arrow keys, scroll accross to the POWER menu - it should be set to this default - USER DEFINED




With USER DEFINED highlighted, hit the ENTER key and this menu appears.... Using the arrow keys scroll to select/highlight the menu item: 'DISABLED'




Hit the ENTER key again to set the defintion as 'DISABLED'





Having set POWER MANAGEMENT to Disabled, now hit the ESC key to exit that menu...










BIOS SETTING - 'PLUG & PLAY O/S' & BOOT SEQUENCE

Ok.. Now we need to make two further BIOS tweaks, so scroll across using the arrow keys to the BOOT menu...



See the red arrow pointing to the 'Plug & Play O/S' setting? - if 'Plug & Play O/S' is NOT set to [NO], then scroll down to select/highlight the 'Plug & Play O/S' menu item, hit the ENTER key and this 'YES/NO' menu appears...



Choose 'NO' and hit the ENTER key again to set the menu item to [NO]





Now, we are back at our main BOOT screen again, and you can see the 'Plug & Play O/S' setting is now set to [NO]...

Now look at the top of the screen & you see the listing of which devices will be scanned in which order for potential boot-up when the PC starts - We have 4 possible items.. In the image above the BIOS is set to BOOT from:

1. [Legacy Floppy] - (the floppy drive)
2. [TDK CDRW121032A] - (the CD-ROM)
3. [Maxtor 6Y080L0] - (the Maxtor hard-drive)
4. [INT18 Device Networ ]

Now, your PC might show a different hard-drive and CD-ROM, unless you happened to have bought the exact same make & model hard-drive & CD-ROM as I have - So basicaly you'll see in the available 4 slots: your floppy-drive, your hard-drive, and your CD-ROM - Highlight the CD-ROM, and use the +/- keys, move the CD-ROM up to position 2 if it is NOt already in that order.

What we are doing here is setting our BIOS ready for Installing Win XP from the setup CD - When the PC boots up, we DON'T want it to try to boot from the hard-drive, because we didn't install any Windows OS yet... The hard-drive is not even formatted!.. So we need the PC to first boot from the CD-ROM which will have our WIN XP cd in it when we are ready to setup & install... It doesn't matter that the 'Floppy drive' is listed at position 1. - if there is no floppy-disk inserted in the floppy-drive, the BIOS simply will scan and bypass the floppy-drive as 'empty' and continue on to then try to boot from the NEXT device in the BOOT menu - and the next device is our CD-ROM - So setting it like this, the PC will boot up and go straight to the CD-ROM drive and find the XP cd and start Windows setup! - geddit?... good! - AFTER XP is setup, we'll re-enter the BIOS & reset the BOOT page of the BIOS & move the CD-ROM into BOOT position 3. - so that the PC seeks the hard-drive first after the floppy-drive - That way, with Windows installed on the hard-drive, the PC will check the floppy-drive, and then skip that and go straight to the hard-drive and boot into WINDOWS!... easy peasy!




Ok... so the Power management is turned off (disabled) - the boot sequnce is set to boot from: floppy-drive then CD-ROM then hard-drive - and we have set the BIOS 'Plug & Play O/S' setting to [NO]


Now hit the ESC key to exit that menu and scroll across using the arrow keys to the EXIT menu - Choose: 'Exit and save settings' - and with [yes] highlighted, hit the ENTER key to save your settings.

Now we can install Win XP - and we're going to install it as mentioned, with the BIOS set to: NON PLUG & PLAY O/S mode with Power Management disabled.














WINDOWS XP SETUP



Ok... Before we begin, here's some re-assurances for newbies.... It doesn't matter how many times you start the XP setup, you can switch off the PC and start again if you miss the part where you need to interupt the setup... XP setup is basicaly the old NT4 setup start with a new XP setup display added for the final setup after re-starting the PC... Up to the point XP has finished copying the files it needs & preparing the drives, you can power down or 'quit' and no damage will be done - simply re-start the install again by re-booting...

Even AFTER XP has copied files and prepared the drive area and started to actualy install properly, you can STILL interrupt the setup - XP has a wonderful 'repair' section of setup - If XP boot's and detects a previously interrupted setup it'll repair it ok - in other words, it's almost impossible to fuck this up - However, JUST in case you somehow totaly screw-up AFTER the drive has been partitioned, you can always wipe the created partition/s and start again... XP doesn't run on DOS as mentioned, so before you start this setup get yourself a 98 boot disk which works... If all goes wrong, we can boot off our 98 boot disk and use the DOS 'fdisk' programme to delete the partition created by XP and reset the drive back to scratch (that'll be a supplement page - I'll add at the end)

Anyways, don't fear... the chance of screwing it up is very rare... let's get on with it...



Ok.. so power ON and open the CD-ROM drive and put in your WIN XP cd-disk - If you don't get the WinXP CD in to the drive fast enuff and the BIOS goes past the BOOT section before your CD is in place, don't worry - You'll just see an error message on the black screen saying that it couldn't boot...



That means the BIOS went past the CD-ROM drive, found nothing in it, so it continued on to the next BOOT device, which is you hard-drive - It arrived at the hard-drive and found no OS installed so it shows the error above... No worries.. The WinXP CD is now in the drive so simply hold down CTRL ALT & press the DEL key, and the PC will re-boot - This time your WinXP CD is already in the drive so the PC will find it ok and start XP setup.





Ok.... the PC finds the WinXP CD and you see this screen for about 4 or 5 seconds...







XP SETUP - STANDARD PC MODE (non Plug & Play)




The XP setup starts - immeadiatly, at the bottom of the screen it says: Press F6 if you need to install a 3rd party scsi or raid driver - at this point press key F5

At first nothing happens, the screen changes to show a new text at the bottom and then another one - don't worry about this delay.. IF you pressed the F5 key as instructed above, then after about 5-6 seconds the setup get's interrupted and you see this screen...



Use the arrow keys like it says to highlight the menu item: Standard PC with C-Step i486




With this menu item selected, hit the enter key to carry on with the setup... Now XP will be installed in STANDARD PC mode and we should be able to manualy set our IRQ resources when it's all done...



XP setup then continues Loading files.... - You'll see this on the bottom of the display, for about 20 seconds or so you'll see various files being 'loaded' - Then the screen changes to this...



Click ENTER, and off we go!....







XP SETUP - NORMAL PLUG & PLAY SETUP


Perform all the steps from the start of the article because Microsoft recommend turning off these features in your BIOS anyways as XP ignores them...




The XP setup starts - immeadiatly, at the bottom of the screen it says: Press F6 if you need to install a 3rd party scsi or raid driver - Do nothing!... Sit back and watch the show

XP setup continues Loading files.... - You'll see this on the bottom of the display, for about 20-30 seconds or so you'll see various files being 'loaded' - Then the screen changes to this...



Click ENTER, and off we go!....









XP SETUP - THE REST - SAME FOR EITHER TYPE OF SETUP




First thing that comes up is Microsoft's end user licence agreement (EULA) - answer F8 for 'I agree' or you wont get further!....







After answering F8 for 'I agree'... we next arrive at the PARTITION section of the XP setup...

A note here - XP as mentioned is based on Microsoft NT4 core, and wants to run on NTFS (NT File System) - NTFS is a more robust 'security concious' file system, and for most uses is fine... However, we really want to run our music PC on that more 'normal' FAT32 file system, and Win XP only can work with a max FAT32 partition size of 32gb... FAT32 can actualy partition/format much larger partition/disk sizes than 32gb, and we 'could' use a Win98 boot disk and first partition & format the drive BEFORE setting up XP... However, for a music PC, a 32gb MAX partition size is ok, because we want to partition our physical drive into several 'Partitions' anyways...

So we arrive at the section where XP detects the physical hard disk and asks you to Partition it...



This is where XP sets up the hard-drive for use... The hard-disk is raw... in this case an 80gb drive, (78160mb is the actual 'rounded-up' size of my disk) - Remember, YOUR hard-disk might be 40gb or whatever and might show a different TOTAL size here, but whatever the MAX size, this listed 'max available size' is un-partitioned and unformatted & is listed as: 'unpartitioned space' - XP highlights the available disk space in white and asks you: To create a partition in the unpartitioned space, press C.



Press C - this screen then appears



You can see the: Maximum size for the new partition is 78152 megabytes (MB) - Highlighted at the bottom is the MAX size ready to be created as the partition - So XP defaults here to offer you the MAX available size of the disk for your partition. But we dont want to have one great big 80gb disk partition - We want several smaller partitions... So we need to select a smaller number for our first partition...

Remember also, XP cannot format in FAT32 a bigger partition than 32gb - This first Partiton we are about to create will be the FIRST/Primary Partition, and it will be ONLY for our Windows XP install and our Programme files... NOTHING else will use this primary partition because all our audio-files & samples etc will reside on their own dedicated partitions (as mentioned in 'disk thoughts' previously in this article series).


Ok... So our first Primary partition we create ONLY needs to be big enuff to support WinXP and our added programmes such as VST, SONAR, LOGIC, FRUITY-LOOPS, ORION etc etc, plus any software synths, samplers etc we install.... I find that 8gb is a nice manageable size for this partition. 8Gb will easily handle WinXP install & plenty of added music programmes with room to spare - 5gb is a tad too small - However, IF you plan to run many other app's on this PC, such as Photoshop etc (100mb basic install) you might want to make the first Primary partition bigger... mebbe 12gb... Don't make it too big tho.



Ok... So I'm going to make this first PARTITION 8gb - So I'll backspace to remove the highlighted 78152 max total number - then I'll type in: 8152 to create an approx 8Gb (8152 Mb) Partition - That will leave approx 70gb (70000 Mb) - (78152mb - 8152mb = 70000mb)



So I type in 8152 - Then as instructed (bottom screen) I press ENTER to create the first Partition.



Now you can see - XP has created my primary first partition as 8150 MB as C: - (Even tho I typed in 8152, XP has rounded it down slightly to: 8150)

Below the  C: 8150 MB created 'Partition 1', is the remaining available 'Unpartitioned space' of 70010 MB, (70gb)





Now we want to create some partitions in the remaining 70Gb (70010 MB) of available unpartitioned drive space - Remember, XP can only format a max 32gb of space in FAT32 file format which we want to use, so each new Partition we create has to be a max 32gb which is fine... Let's do some simple maths...


We have 70gb remaining - we could devide that into 3 x 20gb partitions (D: and E: and F:) equaling about 60gb, with a bit left over of just under 10gb which would become the G: partition...

Or, we could make 2 x 32gb partitions = 64gb, and have another smaller partition of roughly 6gb - (2 x 32gb = 64gb + 6gb = 70gb) - It's up to you... But think about how you'd like to organise your disk partitions.

Our Win XP and programmes Partition (Primary C: Partition) is 8150 MB or 8gb.

We could have one 10Gb partition as our main work disk partition where we actualy save our songs and audio when working - we could then have one 10gb partition for our samples, leaving approx 50gb which we could split in half making one backup/storage area partition and one spare partition for whatever we like...

The point here is this - our main WORK partition where we work on our songs, record our audio etc, idealy wants to be de-fragmented regularly - Defragging a large drive partition takes bloody ages!... So if we create a nice small dedicated 'work partition', and only have data on that partition that we are actualy working on, then we can move & archive completed songs to one of our other 'archive/storage' allocated partitions (and our second 'safety/backup' physical disk-drive when purchased and added) - That way, we can quickly defrag' our small 'work partition' regularly, keeping it de-fragmented and fast - Also, when we've finished working on a song, we can 'archive' it to another archive partition, leaving our 'work partition' empty... that way we can even re-format our empty 'work partition' regularly to really clean it up fast! - Those are the advantages!

In this case I already have purchased a second physical drive to use for backup and for video files when composing music to video - it's better if your video files are streamed from a second disk on a different IDE channel from the disk handling the audio files.

So I'm going to make this disk with:

1 x 8150 MB (8gb) Win XP & programmes Partition - (already created)

1 x 5gb work partition - (easy & quick to defrag, only needs to hold current song I'm working on, so 5gb is plenty of space)

1 x 5gb samples partition - for sample storage

2 x 30gb partitions - for archiving & storage


That will use up all the remaining 70gb of unpartitioned drive space.



Ok so back to our display screen - We've just created our first Primary partition of 8150 MB, which is now visible as C: - Below that is the remaining 70010 (70gb) of 'unpartitioned space'.



Use the arrow keys to scroll down and highlight this 'unpartitioned space' - Then hit the C key again to create another partition in the remaining 'unpartitioned space'.



Here we can see XP is now offering us the remaining 'rounded-up' 70002 Mb (70gb) - I don't want all that for my next partition... My next partition will be the 5Gb 'WORK PARTITION'

So I use the Backspace key to remove the '70002' amount, and type in 5120 (which is 5120mb or 5gb) - I use 5120, cos all PC measurements are based on binary 8's so:

64 x 4 = 256 - (1/4 gb)
256 x 4 = 1024 - (1 gb)
1024 x 5 = 5120 - (5gb)






Ok... i have typed in the next Partition size i want to create from the remaining 'unpartitioned space' - and I hit ENTER key to create it...


The screen returns to the main Partitions screen and now shows, my original 8150 MB (8gb) primary C: Partition, and the newly created 5120MB (5gb) Partition underneath it...



Notice it says that Partition 1 is C: - and Partition 2 is called E: - That is because currently our CD-ROM drive is designated as D: - don't worry, we can change the drive letters once we've installed XP.



Ok... next partition.. I said above i want to create a 5gb work-partition, a 5gb sample partition, and 2 x 30gb archive partitions - Now I'm going to FIRST create my 2 x 30gb partitions, because whatever is left over will be the final sample partition - If I allocate another 5120 MB (5gb) now for my sample partition, that'll leave an odd number and i probably wont get the 2 larger archive Partitions out of it the exact same size because as you can see, Windows always rounds up/down the allocated space.. so as I've already created my 8gb 'XP/Programmes' partition, and my 5gb 'work' partition, I've got approx 65gb left from my original 78gb disk (actual size of the 80gb disk)

However, as you can see, after creating the 5gb (5120 MB) 'work' partition, I should have 65gb left over - 5gb for my samples partition, and that'd leave 60gb for my 2 x 30gb archive partitions - BUT, XP shows there is now 64880 MB left over (64.8gb), which is just under 65gb - So what I'm going to do is create now my 2 x 30gb archive partitions, and whatever is left over after windows rounds the space down will be probably 4.5gb which will be a nice small remaining space I can use as the samples partition.

Remember again, we can re-assign drive letters ( D:, E:, F: etc) once XP is setup, and even title the partitioned drives which appear in the 'My Computer' display with unique names such as: 'D: audio work disk' or whatever you like...

So I'll now create the two 30gb archive partitions and whatever is left over will be the small samples partition... Again, using mutiples of 1024 (1gb) I calculate 30 x 1024 and get a size of: 30720 for 30gb based on binary 8 multiples.... So you simply repeat the process for each partition... Highlight the remaining 'unpartitioned space', hit C, type in your required partition size and hit ENTER - Each time it returns you to the main partitions dialog screen and shows your created new partition and any remaining 'unpartitioned space'.

When it's all done you get down to the final bit of 'unpartitioned space' which in this case has rounded down after creating my 2 x 30720 partitions to leave 3444 mb, or 3.5gb approx which will be my samples partition - i dont use a huge amount of samples so 3.5gb is plenty for me.



Here's my final selection all done - Notice there's s small 8mb remaining of 'unpartitioned space' at the end of the list - that is 'dead space' used by windows... you can't use that last little bit...



As i say... work out what's best for you and create your required partitions.

As you can see from the screen text, if you make a mistake or change your mind during this procedure, simply highlight the partition you DON'T want and hit the D key to delete it...

XP then prompt's you to hit the L key to finaly remove the partition, and when you do that, XP takes you back to the main 'Partitions' screen (as above) and shows you again the remaining 'unpartitioned space' after deleting the selected partition.

You can step back like this deleting partitions all the way back to scratch until you are back again with a completely 'unpartitioned space' disk if you like... So there's no sweat here, take some time, create the partitions how you like... you can always delete them and start again until you've got it right...


When you've made up your mind and all your partitions are created and the disk is fully used up, it's time to then install XP - We install XP on the primary PARTITION 1 - The C: partition.

So... Select the partition C: so it is highlighted as in the image above, and now hit the ENTER key to begin XP installation!




Once we select the C: Partition and hit the ENTER key, we get to the next section where we need to format the C: partition.



XP defaults to select the NTFS file system option (highlighted)...




Use the arrow keys to select instead: Format the partition using the FAT file system



XP now shows you this dialog page telling you the disk is bigger than 2048 mb, and that it's going to format the partition using FAT32 file system...



That's fine and exactly what we want.... Hit ENTER and go for it!



The format begins.....




and the format continues... the bar increments upwardly until 100% is reached...





Once the format is done, XP starts to copy the setup files....



When that copying files is done and the bar has incremented all the way, XP restarts by itself.. You'll see a dialog appear saying the PC will reboot in 15 seconds, and a red bar meter will start to increment from left to right - When it reaches the far right (100%) the PC reboots by itself...... We're nearly there!




Ok after rebooting XP goes into the second stage of setup - here it differs from the NT4 core it's built on, and that's the last we see of the old style NT blue setup-screens - We now get the new XP gui for setup which is graphicaly freindly....

Basicaly there's nothing much to do here after the PC reboots... XP starts setting stuff up and after about 30-45 seconds (on this pc cos it's fast!) the first 'User-Input' dialog appears prompting you to set your Regional Zone & Language Settings...



Fill it all in for your settings and then hit NEXT....



Next comes the input for your name & organisation...



Fill that in and step thru using the NEXT button...



Next comes your CD KEY input - add-in your XP code here and hit NEXT...





Next comes adding your Computer name and administrator password...



Your PC might NOT be on a network now, but it's worth naming it and creating an administrator password... In the future it might be more useful, and also you can set it up after XP has installed so that your PC islocked without the password... So, er... make sure whatever password you add you remember!! - ALSO... remember passwords are CASE SENSITIVE... XP actualy will prompt you if the caps-lock is ON, telling you to watch out for the caps-lock cos passwords are case-sensitive!

Ok... so fill that in, and hit ENTER to step thu to the next bit...



Next comes setting your time-zone and clock.... change it to your location etc...



Now step thru using the NEXT button....



XP now add's network components... the green bar increments upwardly to the right and it takes about 40 seconds or so for that to get done....





Next you're prompted as to what sort of XP setup you want - TYPICAL SETTINGS, or CUSTOM SETTINGS...



If you don't know this then stick to TYPICAL SETTINGS - Not alot of extra gumph get's added using 'Typical' so don't worry about it...




Next you can make the PC part of a WORKGROUP - again, choose a workgroup name and add that in - It doesn't matter if you DON'T have a network now, it might come in useful in the future...



So fill in a WORKGROUP name - make one up, and then press ENTER to continue...



Setup continues 'Copying Files', and as it does so the green indicator bar on the left margin increments... As setup continues you'll see the right main screen area change, displaying various promotional XP stuff telling how great XP is!...





Finaly when it's done 'copying files' and the green indicator bar has incremented all the way to the right, (and you've read all the wonderful Microsoft promo material)... the PC automaticaly will re-boot....

Now we are into the final part of the XP install - almost done!....




LAST STEPS OF XP SETUP

XP re-boots and tells you it's going to set your display settings - don't worry now about adding the latest video-card drivers for your video card right now... We can change those once XP has finished it's setup....



Click OK, and XP goes blank for a few seconds, the screen goes black & XP changes the video settings - After this pause, the screen then shows you a small grey text dialog box up in the top left-hand corner of the black screen asking if you can read the text box ok?... Answer yes, and XP carries on - At this stage the screen might then go black/blank again for mebbe 20 seconds or so - don't worry... That's the end of the setup almost!



Next, XP re-opens the screen and hey-presto!!... We're in!



Remembering your 'Administrator Password' you added during setup, you type it in....







Ok... we've setup XP! - The first thing you want to do now is go to the SYSTEM - hardware manager in Control Panel, and setup your graphic's card drivers with the correct LATEST drivers (if XP didn't apply them which it probably didn't) - Then there are various tweaks to make... Some are cosmetic, for example.. i prefer the 'Classic Windows' setting for all my folders... I prefer a plain desktop background... etc etc - However, there is a few tweaks you can make to speed up XP or Win98SE/ME and we now can also go back to our bios and set the BIOS settings a bit finer, such as setting the ram & bus speed for our 2700 ram etc...

That'll be on a 'final steps page section I'll add next...





















COMMENTS FOR:

'Build a Music PC - XP2000 - super-cheap!! [pt5]'


There are a total:  3  comments posted to this page.


Name:  ronnie
Email: 
Activity: 
Date:  14-Dec-04

when I reach the agreement and press F8 NOTHING HAPPENS. why cant I go pass this stage. I am installing onto a new hard drive.

Article rating out of 5: 

[Add a review/comment]


Article 'ratings' were added September 2008, so most articles have no viewer rating


Name:  james
Email: 
Activity:  Professional
Date:  24-Sep-06

you MUST scroll down to the bottom of the agreement or it wont work when you press f8 if i remember rightly

Article rating out of 5: 

[Add a review/comment]


Article 'ratings' were added September 2008, so most articles have no viewer rating


Last added comment

Name:  alejandro
Email: 
Activity:  Professional
Date:  20-Aug-08

esta muy bien very good

Article rating out of 5: 

[Add a review/comment]


Article 'ratings' were added September 2008, so most articles have no viewer rating








Add your comments here for the article:

'Build a Music PC - XP2000 - super-cheap!! [pt5]'

Your Name * required field!

Your Email * required field! (will not be displayed)

Your Website Link? *optional

Comments - NO weblinks allowed in this feild!

My user type is:    * required field!

Professional   Part Time   Hobbyist




Rate this article out of five:   * optional

   5 - TOTALY AWESOME POWER !!!!!...

   4 - TOTALY 'AUSTIN POWERS' !!!!....

   3 - HOT HATCHBACK POWER !!!.....

   2 - PIZZA-MOPED POWER !!......

   1 - HAMSTER/TRUNDLE-WHEEL POWER !.......

Are you a spam-bot?
Please copy the displayed number into the box to post:

83411  


     

Note: To cut down on spammers, cookies must be enabled to post comments to this page.




 [back to top]