Bought my mom-in-law a A-I-W 8500 .

[krag]

Bought my mom-in-law a A-I-W 8500-DV .

I have never owned a ATI vid card before or even installed one. So this is gonna be a new experience for me. I have often heard of the ATI driver problems. Are the aTI cards as easy to install as the Nvidia cards? What do i have to do differently than an NV install?

I am gonna upgrade my M.I.L. computer for her.

Her current rig:
ECS peice of crap mobo.
Duron 850mhz
Onboard crappy video.
128mb pc100
2x CDrom

Her new rig:
Asus P4B533
P4 1.8
256mb pc2100
16x DVD rom
40x MSI Dragon burner
ATI All In Wonder 8500 DV 64mb

Her current rig was my first successfull custom pc. i can't believe it is still going??? She is really into computers now he he he and she is a TV nut. So I figured she would really like an All In Wonder card. Tell me what yuo guys think.

 

[attack]

well the AIW is very cool, lotsa fun stuff to play with. I think that is a solid setup you got there for her. the only change I would make is get PC2700 memory, it's the same price IIRC and you can set the mem ratio up a little more (not really OCing either). Other then that great job...oh and if you don't want that "crappy" 850 duron mobo and ram....i'll find a home for it

 

[krag]

Actually the pc2100 is pc3200...it was my old stick before I got my current corsair pc3500. She lives in Hawaii and the wife and I are going there for thanksgiving...do you think that if I oc it to a little it would be stable and cool? Cause if it has any problems I won't be able to fix them for her.

 

[attack]

Well I take a really moderate approach, I made a couple of systems for friends who went off to college and I had the luxory of building the system weeks in advance to test for stability. I would not OC if you can't determine it's stable for less that 48 hours...I would think it would be safe, but it just isn't worth the hassle, if she wants it faster you can walk her through it, it would just be a simple fsb adjustment. I would however increase the ram ratio since it wouldn't be OCing the RAM at all.

 

[krag]

What do you mean ram ratio? The only ram ratio's on the p4b533 are 1:1 and 4:3. The dipswitch trick only works on a fsb selection above 133fsb. This 1.8 being an "A" chip means it only starts at 100fsb...I would have to push it all the way to 133fsb before I could use it. Do you know of another way?

 

[OC Noob]

Bump it up to 133. Thats fairly moderate. 133 is nothing for a 1.8a and maybe turn the voltage up 5%, but I doubt you'll need to.

 

[KiKaL]

ATI cards are just as easy as Nvidia cards to install. I have installed 2 ATI cards without a hitch and no problems with drivers and 1 Nvidia card and had no problems with that one eather. SO I would say you shouldnt have a problem at all installing it

 

[funnyperson1]

Ati cards arent that hard to install...most of the people that have had problems with them think that XP magically manages the drivers and that no uninstalling of old Nvidia drivers is required lol...make sure you completly wipe out the the old drivers then insall the new catalysts...

 

[Big Nuttz]

Actually the pc2100 is pc3200...it was my old stick before I got my current corsair pc3500. She lives in Hawaii and the wife and I are going there for thanksgiving...do you think that if I oc it to a little it would be stable and cool? Cause if it has any problems I won't be able to fix them for her.

Hawaii huh? Must be nice. I like my AIW 7500 it has alot of cool features.

 

[krag]

Yep the land of sun, surf and sun burns....waaahhhooooo! When I get my M.I.L.'s puter hooked up I will post a thread with pics of me on Waikakii beach. ha ha ha