Asus A7N8X tweaking tips requested

[Pavlov]

First time builder
Just put together the following rig(below) and am a bit disappointed. My previous rig was an Athlon 1600XP with Epox 8HKA+ and Asus GF3 ti200. Haven't ran any games yet, just apps - for now I see no noticeable difference between the two. Maybe it's me, but the new system seems to lag a bit more. I would be eternally grateful if anybody could take the time and give me some detailed advice re. BIOS setup, drivers, etc or anything else that might improve the performance of this system. Right now I'm running it at 5-2-2-2 / 11x166 setting(is this OK?). Also - when I set the display refresh rate to anything above 60hz my monitor flickers, but I can leave the monitor RR at 85hz - no problem??? Display/monitor, what's the difference???
Thanks,
Pavlov

AMD Athlon XP 2500+ 1.83GHz, 512k, 333FSB, s462, Barton
Arctic Cooling Copper Silent 2 Rev 2 heatsink & fan
2 x 256mb Corsair DDR DIMM 333MHz cl2
Asus A7N8X(Rev 2) Nvidia nForce2-S Chipset, AMD Motherboard, 200/266/333FSB Support, DualChannel DDR400 (Effective 800 MHz DDR), 3xDIMM (3GB Max), AGP8X/PRO, 5xPCI, ATA133, Realtec ALC650 6-channel Audio, Realtek 8201BL 10/100 BaseT Network, 6xUSB 2.0
Asus Radeon 9600 XT/TVD, 500 MHz Core, 128bit 128MB DDR (600 MHz), AGP8X, DVI & D-SUB (VGA), Dual Monitor Support, ViVo (Video-In & Video-Out/TV-Out), DirectX 9 & OpenGL 2.0 Support, Powered by ATI + Hauppauge Win TV 2000 tuner
Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 8 40GB Hard Drive , ATA133, 2 MB Cache 7200 RPM (2 yrs old)
LG Flatron FT 915
Antec Mid Tower Case
Antec True380, 380 ATX Watt Power Supply, AMD + Intel Certified, TWO Thermal Controlled Variable Speed Fans
2 X Antec 80mm Smartcool, Ball Bearing, 21 to 34 dBA, 24 to 41 CFM, 1650 to 2850 RPM, Temperature Sensor, Variable speed
LG CD/DVD

[AsianBatman]

I would get a Thermaltake silent boost for you cpu cooler and a Western digital hard drive.

[Pavlov]

Asian Batman,
My hard drive is showing signs of aging (bearing rattling) and I was thinking of getting a new one. Why WD and not Maxtor or Seagate?
Thanks

[AsianBatman]

Western Digital because i think they have great harddrives, and not seagate because mine failed me before...and i mattrox is fine too. I have a WD and it is good! :thumb:

[Thoric]

the WD JB range are excellent in the fact they have a 8mb cache, high performance, high reliability and a good warranty.

[snowpro]

Hey Pavlov!

You may not see much difference just surfing your new set up is without doubt Faster, and with that asus board and 2500xp
you can OC
As far as video or monitor should be able to have refresh 60 to 85 or any between, within limits of your crt.
Remove your drivers and reload did you load drivers from your mobo cd, also youn can download new drivers from web, seems to be lots of drivers out there some may be better than others.

Update your BIOS EASY with your updater I have same board
I'm on revision 1006, I think there is 1007 out now

You should upgrade memory coarsair pc3200 400fsb if ya going to OC. otherwise probably not matter much.

If you buy New HDD Western D or Maxtor both are good, maxtor is the quietest of the two brands, WD might get 3yr warrenty, I have two maxtors one is SATA both are 80gb 7200rpm 8gb catch
both were purchased for about $80.00 each, The SATA is faster
I'm going to buy 2 more SATA do raid 0 thats probably going to fly
I would avoid seagate drives, noisey, die easy, lots of DOA's
should pay aprox $1.00 per GIG

Check your bios may be need to change some settings lots of stuff in there

If you dont have XP OS GET IT it's the fastest. windows/ 2000 slower but I like it too