A Simple One for the PCMech Godz...

[Wrnchhead76]

Hey everyone, im new to the whole computer building world, but i guess im fairly smart, and im doing my best to read all the posts on PCMech, much to the chagrin of my wife. This has been the single best source of information of all time, if you ask me. I know you guys hate someone posting questions that they could find the answers to if they would just look a little, but i think i may have a new question. I am building a new pc, the relevant specs, an Intel d845gebv2 motherboard, a 2.4b pentium IV. Well, using this tired old PII laptop is seriously starting to suck, it won't keep up with a decent game of AOEII, hence the new build. (Sorry this is so long, but i want to cover all the bases) Ok, and just like everyone else, i have some money to play with, just not tons, but i'd rather save and wait than buy something cheap and sucky just to get it done. My brother in law had an old gateway 2000 with a PI and an unknown sized HD. I took out the 4x cd rom and the 3.5 inch floppy drive and put them in my build temporarily to speed the build along, i am planning on buying something else ASAP, but the anticipation of 2.4 ghz is killing me. Ok(lol), so, can i hook up the old win 95 hd, and use it to at least boot my computer and make sure everything else works?
And, i know you will all laugh, but my new motherboard has integrated "extreme"(lmao) graphics, do you think much of that? Will a Raedon 9500 be a total kick in the pants for it? Thank you for you time, i really appreciate it! U guys rock!!

[Redo40]

The Radeon 9500 will really rock compared to the onboard graphics.

Are you talking about keeping the old installation of Win 95 on the hd? Or just using the hd and installing a different OS.

[mike breck]

Sure you can hook up the old Win95 in the short-term. You just won't get the same type of performance with an old HD.

I presume you are waiting until the you get the money to buy a 7200rpm HD?

Just do the ENUM key trick before running the HD with the new mobo. Please remember to delete the key in Safe Mode.

http://forum.pcmech.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=9254

HTH

[glc]

There are issues with Win95 and processors faster than 2.1 GHz - it might be best not to try it if you want to preserve anything on the hard drive. If you just want to see if it boots, boot it to safe mode.

[Wrnchhead76]

What's on the old hard drive doesn't really matter to me, i just wanted it so i could boot the system, and make sure that every thing works. I have my eye on a 7200 rpm 120 gig job, i'm so tired of this 5.5 gig i have. Ok, so i'll do the enum trick, and boot it in safe mode, and if i get to windows, then i know im probably ok. Thanks for your time.

[glc]

What I'm saying is - even if you remove the enum key, if you try to boot into normal Windows, you may get a bluescreen due to the 2.1+ GHz bug.

http://www.sjordan.com/ndis_fix.html

I believe that you would be OK in safe mode because the NDIS driver won't try to load.

If the old drive has enough space, why don't you just do a clean install of whatever OS you are going to be using (98SE or newer) and then clone it to the new drive when you get it?

[Cricket]

If you only want to see if your parts work, you don't have to hook up the hard drive. Just assemble the motherboard, CPU, heatsink, RAM, video, power supply and monitor and power up. If everything is okay, you'll get the one good POST beep.

:) Cricket

[Wrnchhead76]

Ok, sweet, i understand now. When i get my ram i'll let you know how it goes! Thank you glc and Cricket!!!