I want to upgrade but Vista is holding me back

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Thread: I want to upgrade but Vista is holding me back

  1. #1
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    I want to upgrade but Vista is holding me back

    Hey guys. I've been wanting to do a full system upgrade for the past 2 months actually, but I had to do lots of homework and catching up on todays technologies since I've been away for about 3 years.

    Anyway, I'm about ready to SLI two of those geforce 8800gtx's and get that new nForce 650i mobo, etc, but whats holding me back is installing windows XP on it.

    The other day, I decided to upgrade to XP's service pack 2; but the installation froze at 75% and completely locked up my machine. Ever since I rebooted, I've had major issues with many of my programs working. My machine pauses for a good minute during Post tests for some odd reason, and I get prompted to boot from CD. Sometimes I cannot even boot normally, I get told to restart and insert a system boot disk (xp).

    Meh, its been a good 4 years since I formatted my HD and started all over again, heck I forgot all the commands to do it but I figured why bother just deal with it, since I will get a new box anyway.

    With my recent troubles of attempting to upgrade to SP2, this got me thinking, will I run into any troubles when I upgrade from a barebones windowsXP I will use to install on my new gaming rig, to Vista?

    Windows upgrading info: http://www.microsoft.com/windowsvist...gradeinfo.mspx

    I would probably choose "clean install"

    Clean install
    Upgrading to Windows Vista with a clean install means that you should use Windows Easy Transfer to automatically copy all your files and settings to an extra hard drive or other storage device, and then install Windows Vista. After the installation is complete, Windows Easy Transfer will reload your files and settings on your upgraded PC. You will then need to reinstall your applications.
    But these are the questions that are bothering me. Will I need to reinstall all the drivers of my mobo, sli geforce graphics cards, etc? (I dont think so right?)
    Will I have to reinstall the programs of the cd's that included the drivers from my hardware? ie-Nvidea's program that lets you access your BIOS from windows and their windows tweak settings straight out of your windows control panel, the Geforce options that monitor your SLI setup and info that runs on your taskbar, etc?

  2. #2
    «:::Cynical Shark:::» vairox's Avatar
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    play it safe and just do a format and install, windows is terrible with upgrading and installing over etc, you will have problems.
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  3. #3
    Richard M. Nixon '08 PCJ's Avatar
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    I agree. Just throw all your documents & media on a temporary partition and then format everything else.
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  4. #4
    Tiger Shark UmneyDurak's Avatar
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    You know if you are going with SLI set up with 8800 GTX, might as well go with 680i chipset.
    Last edited by UmneyDurak; 11-15-2006 at 12:40 AM.
    01+01=10

  5. #5
    Mako Shark Weedkiller420's Avatar
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    Wow four year without a reinstall is no joke. That thing must be more messed up then Michael Jackson.

    Anyway, you sound more of a user then an admin. I would say get a pre-built system with a nice warranty you don't sound like someone that needs 8800gtx's or the 680i either. Wait till vista is released and get yourself a nice dell with it installed you will save yourself a lot of time and headache.
    Last edited by Weedkiller420; 11-15-2006 at 12:56 AM.
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    Thanks, that was a typo I forgot to edit, I shall go with the 680i chipset.
    It's been 4 years since I formatted my computer and did a fresh os install, I just flat out completely forgot how to format my HD. I would probably need a guide to a link on how to format and re-install os's. If I could stumble across a good guide I can purchase all the parts I need this Saturday, otherwise I will wait 'till Jan30th and let my pc hardware dealer do it for free since I know the guy.

  7. #7
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    Quote Originally Posted by Weedkiller420
    Wow four year without a reinstall is no joke. That thing must be more messed up then Michael Jackson.

    Anyway, you sound more of a user then an admin. I would say get a pre-built system with a nice warranty you don't sound like someone that needs 8800gtx's or the 680i either. Wait till vista is released and get yourself a nice dell with it installed you will save yourself a lot of time and headache.
    An SLI setup rig from alienware/dell, even with my employee's discount of 12%, will cost me a good 6 grand and having to get monitors, keyboards, drives and other stuff that I do not need with preinstalled software and stuff I am forced to buy that I will just delete when I first get, If I just build it myself I'll save a good 3 grand. I just simply forgot the procedures/commands thats all. If I can find a good guide on formatting and reinstalling os's I should be fine, I've done it a hundred times before, but I forgot many things due to time.
    Last edited by The Boss of Bosses; 11-15-2006 at 02:53 AM.

  8. #8
    Expensive Sushi Raizer's Avatar
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    I know other people have mentioned it, but it really needs to be stressed: if you're planning to run 8800 GTXes in SLI, make sure you get a full tower. I made the mistake of buying a mid tower case for my system with a single 8800 GTX, and while I did manage to get everything to fit, it was a real squeeze job, and if I ever want to upgrade to SLI I know I will need to swap out the case.

  9. #9
    Mako Shark PriMaTe's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by The Boss of Bosses
    An SLI setup rig from alienware/dell, even with my employee's discount of 12%, will cost me a good 6 grand and having to get monitors, keyboards, drives and other stuff that I do not need with preinstalled software and stuff I am forced to buy that I will just delete when I first get, If I just build it myself I'll save a good 3 grand. I just simply forgot the procedures/commands thats all. If I can find a good guide on formatting and reinstalling os's I should be fine, I've done it a hundred times before, but I forgot many things due to time.
    Yea good call on building it yourself, you'll save money and relearn everything. You have the forums to help you if you run into any trouble.

    Formatting is very simple with windows xp. Just boot from the windows xp cd, delete your windows partition, recreate your windows partition, and then install windows xp to that partition. You'll remember once you boot the cd up.

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    Tiger Shark DMan82's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by The Boss of Bosses
    An SLI setup rig from alienware/dell, even with my employee's discount of 12%, will cost me a good 6 grand and having to get monitors, keyboards, drives and other stuff that I do not need with preinstalled software and stuff I am forced to buy that I will just delete when I first get, If I just build it myself I'll save a good 3 grand. I just simply forgot the procedures/commands thats all. If I can find a good guide on formatting and reinstalling os's I should be fine, I've done it a hundred times before, but I forgot many things due to time.
    I've never heard of any consumer PC in the last 4 years costing $6,000 unless every piece of useless hardware is thrown in there. Where did you get your numbers from?

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  11. #11
    Tiger Shark DMan82's Avatar
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    Holy hell! Out of curiosity, I just went to dell.com to price out the biggest, baddest XPS system, and you're right... damn near hit $6000. How the crap can they charge those kinds of numbers for that hardware??? I hate Dell so much. On their base systems, they cut so many corners to make a $300 PC that you can't trust it any further than you can throw it, but then they overprice everything on the high-end. Why can't they just be fair...

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  12. #12
    Tiger Shark UmneyDurak's Avatar
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    You should visit Alienware. Just for giggles I build custom system. Came out to about 8k, and it's not even SLI! So you need to add another 650 to that to make it SLI.
    01+01=10

  13. #13
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    If you think Alienware is bad, check out Falcon northwest

    http://www.falcon-nw.com/config/build.asp

    You'll crack the $8,000 mark.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Weedkiller420
    Wow four year without a reinstall is no joke. That thing must be more messed up then Michael Jackson.

    Anyway, you sound more of a user then an admin. I would say get a pre-built system with a nice warranty you don't sound like someone that needs 8800gtx's or the 680i either. Wait till vista is released and get yourself a nice dell with it installed you will save yourself a lot of time and headache.

    Here's a questions that goes right along with what you said:

    If I havent reinstalled in 3 years BUT I run registry cleaners, spybot programs etc etc (I use 3 different programs each of which have several "cleaning" functions built in - is it REALLY necessary to reinstall?

    I know a lot more than your average user and I built my last 3 systems - I just never learned much about the OS side of things - I never want to have to reinstall my applications (if you could see my desk and how unorganized I am in that regard) you would know why...

    I'm basically holding on till Feb or so - waiting for Vista and the DX10 cards to hit 2nd gen before I plunge in - and at least a bit of my willingness to wait comes from my desire to NOT reinstall Winxp on my current system.

  15. #15
    Hammerhead Shark morphid's Avatar
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    no matter how often you run defrags, cleaning programs, anti-virus, anti-adware, anti-spyware or registry cleaning software, there are always stray exe and dll-files being loaded without your knowledge that slow down the system. also, updating programs to newer versions can sometimes lead to slowdowns (probably related to what i mentioned above). a reformat and clean install does wonders to any system. you might think your system is fast even though you haven't reformatted in 3 (or even 4) years, but it's not - at least not compared to how fast it could be.

    naturally, there's more to it than just reformatting. you should never run more programs in the background than necessary. i have 4 items in my system tray that load after start up, and that's enough for me. if i need anything else i start it up when necessary. i also always try to choose software that isn't resource-intensive. anti-virus programs usually bog a system down pretty well. try to find one that is both effective and puts little strain on the system (there are very few out there and it's hard to find a good compromise between effectiveness and resourcefulness). NOD32 does a good job for me, but admittedly, it could be a bit less demanding resource-wize.

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