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System install questions (bios,HD,XP,drivers...)?

S

SkaarjMaster

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Jan 31, 2002
Messages
1,576
I'm installing the "Dragon2" system below in my sig. on Thursday night and beyond except now I'm using an Asus P4P800-Deluxe MB instead because the Dragon2 won't post. I have a bunch of questions for anyone that can answer. Please indicate question # in your answers. Thank you.

System Connections
1. Since I eventually want to move both my HDs to IDE 3/4, should I start with one HD on IDE1 and one CD/DVD device on IDE2 (as masters without slaves of course) to install XP?

Bios and Startup
2. I have 2-3-3-6 RAM, but DRAM Burst Length is not part of this. Should I set it to 4 clocks (default) or 8 clocks? I'm not overclocking anything for now.

3. I'm pretty sure I'm going to set the AGP aperture to 128MB, but a system install guide I was reading says to set it to match your VRAM and my VRAM is 256MB. I'll probably only bump it up to 256 for Doom3 and beyond. Good plan?

4. Here's some questions I'm sure everyone asks. PnP OS or not? ACPI or not? APM or not? Actually, I'm going to try to disable PnP OS and enable ACPI and APM. I was going to try setting HAL to Standard PC and then disable ACPI, but this may cause more problems than it is worth. What do you guys think?

5. What about ACPI 2.0 Support, ACPI APIC Support, and Bios > AML ACPI Table? Should all these be enabled?

6. What's Add On ROM Display Mode? The default is Force Bios, other choice is Keep Current.

7. Any advantages to enabling Wait For 'F1' If Error?

Hard Drive Partitioning
8. I have a 200GB HD, should my primary partition be 20GB or is this too large? I was originally thinking more like 15GB. That same system install guide I mentioned earlier says at least 20GB for a 120GB HD.

9. Should I create a partition for a swapfile (at beginning) on 2nd 200GB HD being used for backup of first (not RAID)? If so, how big should it be with 1GB or RAM? 2GB of RAM? I was thinking maybe a 4GB partition.

WindowsXP Install
10. After setting all bios settings, do I need a startup disk or do I just use the XP CD?

11. Does Drive Image come with XP or do I have to buy this to backup partitions? Or will DriveCopy 3.0 work in XP?

12. Should I copy the entire I386 installation directory to a partition and point to this instead of WinXP CD during installation?

Drivers and Apps
13. Will I need to update the ASPI layer for my CD/DVD devices or is the XP one fine?

14. Should I install DirectX before the video drivers?

15. Now that I'm using a different MB, I'm going to have to come up with a new name for my new system. Any suggestions? :D

Thanks for any help on any of these questions!:)
 
Question #1: That is fine, it is the best way to do it.
Question #3: Certainly a good idea. Bumping the graphics aperture up to the highest you can go is an easy way to get heaps more FPS out of a game
Question #10: Just use the XP CD, as long as you have set the CD-ROM as a boot drive before the HD.
Question #14: Direct X is normally installed as a part of Windows anyway, but say if you were upgrading to Direct X 9, it wouldn't really matter I don't think.
Question #15: How about "[H]ard-enabled machine"? :D
Hope this helps.
 
Well, tonight's the night. Any more ideas? I'm especially interested in any replies or information or links for questions 4, 5, 9, 11 or 13! Thank you.
 
The best advice I can give you is to head over to here: http://www.adriansrojakpot.com/Speed_Demonz.htm

This site has a bunch of fantastic guides. Their BIOS Optimization Guide is probably the most complete, well known, and respected guide on the subject on the net. There is also a pagefile optimization guide there as well.

As for Q #13, I always do, just to be on the safe side. You may want to go ahead and make sure you have the latest drivers, software, and firmware for ALL of your components once you get it up and running. A good habit to get into is to keep a list of all your PC's components, and about once every 3 months or so, go and check for new updates to all the above listed stuff.
 
Thanks cloudkat! I was going through the manual and checking either that site or another for the various bios settings and couldn't find some info. on some items. I'll check out that site though.

I just burned a CD last night with all the latest drivers, bios, manuals for all my devices including the latest 1016 bios for my Asus MB.

....just checked and it was that site and it has no info. on those other bios settings that seem to be Asus-specific or something. I may try searching at the Asus site. Also, I may check the MS site for swapfile info. as the Adrian.... site only had info. for 98/2000.
 
You don't really need MB specific info. Out of all the questions you asked, you can refer to the last version of that BIOS Optimization guide for details on your questions. The answers will not change from MB to MB.

But there is also many other useful guides on that site as well.

Good luck my friend, and keep us informed on any new sites or info you find.
 
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