Getting the most out of a Quad core...

DJPadre wrote on 12/3/2007, 6:48 PM
OK, well one of my old systems is in dire need of a new brain and i just forked out 600bux for a new Mobo, DDR2 ram and a Quad core Q6600

Now this upgrade is a lill different..
The mobo i bought was a funny one.. its AGP AND PCIe, (only one at a time obviously) but it also retains all the IDE and PCI slots as my existing board.
This means i dont have to bust my ass with HDD's and GFX cards (which is a kick ass 6800GT which cost a bloody fortune.. for MB2 though, its paid itself off tenfold... )

The ram is Corsair DDR2 @ 800mhz and as the board only supports 2GB, i got the 2gb..

Now, the trick here is to upgrade only the components that are needed. in this case the CPU, RAM And Mobo.

Now, in my previous upgrade to what i have now, ive retained my 7HDD plus 2 other IDE burners. This system has been solid now for over2 yrs withthe same OS install

Power supply is also fine in case ppl were wondering.. yeah right.. lol

Now, the question.. if i just rip out the exsting mobo ram and cpu, theoretically the system should be able to just cope with a clean swap, so long as i keep all my IRQ's on the same setup. Sadly it bios and windows dictate this, but im yet to have a problem back then when they did change...

But the idea is to upgrde the brains of the kit, wthout having to reinstall the OS.
I have ALOT of software on here which has taken years to perfect and tweak with thousands of presets and project templates to get the performance i need. In essence this old machine runs as fast as a dual core 2.4, and its only a single core 3g extreme with 1gb ram... go figure..

Anyways, first question.. is there a ghosting application which can copy the entire OS setup? Just in case i need to reinstall the OS, i dont want to lose all my previous setups and presets

Second..
Aside from some registry issues from software which locks down your Mobo and CPU config within the instal, is there anyting else i need to do?
How about vegas?? Aside from setting the threads to 4, is there anything else i shoudl take note of?
I set my dynamic ram preview to 300mb, and it renders pretty quick...

In the past, ive built the systems from scratch, and back then , there were no multicore CPUs to worry about.. lol

thoughts??

Comments

Coursedesign wrote on 12/3/2007, 7:20 PM
A 2-year old system will certainly have some Windows rot that can only be cured with a total fresh install, no matter what some happy vendors are touting, but maybe you got lucky.

Use Acronis TrueImage Home to make a mirror copy of your OS drive. It can copy everything over to a different size harddrive without problems (as long as everything fits), and if it's to a bigger drive, you now have a bigger usable system disk.

This program works really well for this purpose, and also for a number of different backup tasks.

When you're ready to upgrade your "kick ass 6800GT," there will be a 9000 series in the January/February time frame which should run many times faster than a 6800GT. No need to settle for a mere 7000 series or 8000 series GPU :O).

DJPadre wrote on 12/3/2007, 7:33 PM
"When you're ready to upgrade your "kick ass 6800GT," there will be a 9000 series in the January/February time frame which should run many times faster than a 6800GT. No need to settle for a mere 7000 series or 8000 series GPU :O). "

HAHAHAHA at least you got my joke!! Hey the 6800 aint that bad.. lol for MB2 its faster than realtime so im pleased with it.. but yeah, i was holding back for the 9k DX10 series

As for a fresh install, if i can backup th entire drive, with all the settings i need and presets etc etc, then a fresh install would be prefered. Sadly, i have many thousands of hours ( i kid u not) of preset temapltes and filter chains, through to animation templates etc etc
The biggest hassle is making sure i do not lose these settings, and sadly, Vegas preset manager only works with filters, it doesnt work with project, render or pan crop presets.

Ill try that backup application and se e how i go

cheers
P
4eyes wrote on 12/3/2007, 8:20 PM
Did you do this yet?
Windows probably won't boot if you image the partition (depends on the windows version).
Changing the Mobo & Bios will report a different machine id in the windows authenication (oobe) won't it?

Besides, if your going with a new Mobo you should re-install windows again, at least my opinion because of different chipsets, drivers & all.

Good luck with it.
Personally I'd build a new machine, leave this one intact & network them together on a 1gig net.
Coursedesign wrote on 12/3/2007, 9:40 PM
Windows probably won't boot if you image the partition (depends on the windows version).

No problem at all, I have done it with one of my Win XP systems, and I don't think it would be a problem with any other Windows either (except maybe Vista where all bets are off).

Changing the Mobo & Bios will report a different machine id in the windows authenication (oobe) won't it?

Could be, but you can call MS on the phone (standard activation hotline) and convince them that you had to replace your mobo, and they'll likely give you a pass.

Feel the Windows Genuine Advantage!

:O)
DJPadre wrote on 12/4/2007, 3:57 AM
well, theoretically, its jsut teh brains im removing and replacing.. it shouldnt make a difference to any aplicaiton aside from those that use the hardware as an element within teh registry tag. (such as Particle Illusion)

I also dont see XP Pro being an issue as it doesnt check your hardware config upon registry... not that i know of anyway.. i dont se why it wouldnt boot up, i can see how it wil check the PCU and allocate threads as required though, but thats through OS to BIOS comms, which with any HT cpu, shouldnt need to change
JJKizak wrote on 12/4/2007, 5:25 AM
My guru buddy says it will not boot up. He also says the OS puts a lot of secret data on the small 8 meg sections of the hard drives allotted for such so he double zero's them to get the old data off for a "clean" install. You will see that during windows updates that one of your drives will be picked for storing some secret and non secret data (not "C"). When you do what "BILL" doesn't want you to do you will pay in the long run. It would be best to save what you want on a drive then transfer it to the newly zereod drives then zero the old drive. Or do not update.
JJK
MacVista wrote on 12/4/2007, 5:39 AM
I've done this a few times.
First boot your system in safe mode and then remove all the motherboard specific devices in hardware manager. (if it tells you it needs to reboot tell it not yet until you've uninstalled all the devices)
Oh and leave the USB drivers till last if you're using a USB mouse :-)
Shut down, install new motherboard and then when it boots up it should find all the new devices and install them.
Make sure you have the cd that came with the new motherboard handy in case it can't load drivers automatically.
If that fails then re-install windows to the same directory to repair the windows install.

If it asks to be re-activated just give microsoft a ring and explain you changed some hardware. They'll give you an activation code.
DJPadre wrote on 12/4/2007, 7:09 PM
First boot your system in safe mode and then remove all the motherboard specific devices in hardware manager.

((I dont think there are any to be honest... aside from the USB ports and ethernet adapter which this old one is a Marvell Yuken (or some shit) and this one is a Via ))

"Shut down, install new motherboard and then when it boots up it should find all the new devices and install them."

((I remember this happened last time we did this.. but we didnt uninstall anythign as the original Mobo off the first build had in built IDE raid that we tried to salveage and.. long story.. ))

Make sure you have the cd that came with the new motherboard handy in case it can't load drivers automatically.

((Yup.. ))

If that fails then re-install windows to the same directory to repair the windows install.

((hm..... now ur making me worry.. lol ))

owlsroost wrote on 12/5/2007, 1:54 AM
I think following MacVista's advice should give it the best chance of working, otherwise it might get into a mess on first boot (I've had this happen with Win2k when attempting a similar MB upgrade in the past). That said, I'd always make a backup (clone) of the boot partition first - just in case you have to repair/reinstall XP to get it working.

Personally, I'd wipe the partition and re-install XP from scratch - it might be a lot quicker overall compared to sorting out the mess afterwards if it all goes pear-shaped......

I run a similar VIA-based AGP+PCIe+PCI motherboard (ASUS P5VD1X running a P4 D805 overclocked to 3.2GHz), so you will have VIA IDE/SATA/AGP/USB/LAN hardware - most of this will run OK with 'stock' XP drivers, but you may want to install at least some of the VIA '4-in-1' driver package to get better performance.

Tony
MacVista wrote on 12/9/2007, 9:10 AM
Hi, sorry, I've been busy.

Don't forget all the onboard stuff like IDE controllers etc.
Those are the things that will really get you.

Re-installing windows to the same directory is a very useful way of refreshing an existing windows install. I do it pretty regularly just to keep my PC running smoothly.

You may need to re-install a bunch of windows updates but it's no big deal and at least it keeps all your software and settings intact.

Of course taking a backup of everything first goes without saying ;-)
samundsen wrote on 12/9/2007, 9:36 AM
This is just a side note, but for creating an image of your boot drive, nothing beats DriveImage XML. It's totally free, and is available here:

http://www.runtime.org/

To restore an image to your boot drive, get The Ultimate Boot CD for Windows:

http://www.ubcd4win.com/

This is a tool that will create a bootable, live Windows XP CD with lots of preinstalled tools that you can run right off the CD. DriveImage XML is included in this kit. Also totally free. All that is required is that you have a valid Windows XP boot CD to use as a base for the UBCD tool to create its live boot CD.
riredale wrote on 12/9/2007, 3:50 PM
I've evolved my own XP system through about 4 motherboards at this point over the years, using DriveImage originally and more recently Acronis.

If Windows doesn't have the basic drivers necessary to talk to the motherboard chipset, it will bluescreen on you. No big deal, nothing's been fried. What I had done in the past was to build a version of XP that had ALL chipset drivers in it, using a Microsoft technique that I can't seem to locate on their website any more (what a surprise!). However, I've heard it said that you can do essentially the same thing by moving your hard drive over to the new motherboard, and then boot from the XP CD. You tell it to repair the existing installation (NOT a new install) and supposedly it will put in the necessary drivers to make Windows work with the hard drive. After that, you need to install the incidental bits and pieces to make all the yellow exclamation marks go away in the Device Manager window.

There should never be a need to completely rebuild your Windows environment from scratch.

EDIT:

I found the Microsoft article that tells you how to modify XP so that it will automatically seek out the proper hard disk drivers. Also, I was wrong about the bluescreen of death. It's actually a red screen of death in this instance.