For the first time in almost one year of existence, this website was NOT updated for over seven days - the last week of February. Of course that was NOT an option... If you like horror, read what follows...

During the last seven days, I lived a true nightmare with my PC, which ultimately caused the loss of over 3 GBytes of personal data!! Now I am back from hell, but not without some permanent traumas. For example, I now a nurture a never-to-be-changed hate to ASUS, a relatively popular hardware manufacturer [just the name makes me sick!]. If you dare, go visit their website @ www.asus.com.tw. I don't code an hyperlink reference to them on purpose! I simply don't want the slightest contact with such crap hardware!

Well, let me tell you the whole story...

Once upon a time - like seven days ago :) - I ran out of Hard Disk [HD] space, on my PC. Plus, I was really needing a new 3D accelerator, and because 3DFX is taking ages to launch the Voodoo 5 and convincing people about their new technology's short term availability, I decided to buy a NVIDIA GEFORCE 256 DDR solution: the Annihilator PRO, from Creative Labs, which already ships with Windows 2000 [un-mature] drivers and always scores #1 against other GEFORCE toys, including the the ASUS proposals, which - by the way - tend to be outperformed, by everything you put against them, mainly because of stereo glasses support, TV IN / TV OUT features and so on. My advise is: unless you do need such features, run away from them, as they will cost A LOT in 3D performance.

So, despite running an ~80 GB HD PC, that was really not enough for all my needs, and I had to fork some money on NEW HDs. My choice went for my personal favorites: the MAXTORs. I bought two 40.9 GB UDMA66 7200 rpm beasts, that joined two 17.4 GB UDMA33 5000 rpm storage devices... and some SCSI friends...

The new UDMA66 HDs require an UDMA66 IDE controller, but they still can be used with the regular UDMA33 IDE boards.

When using an UDMA66 device, on a UDMA66 controller, you MUST use a "special" 40 pin - 80 conductors IDE cable, usually provided with the controller. New motherboards tend to be sold in a package that includes one of those cables. I guess two cables would be asking too much...

Well, the potential for trouble did begin right HERE. Because I could NOT find anyone selling Intel i840 based boards [with UDMA66 support], I decided to wait and re-use my SUPERB FIC VB-601 [www.fic.com.tw]. However, its BIOS auto-detection feature was unable to recognize the new HDs...

This first problem was very easy to solve: I visited the FIC website and downloaded the MI415 flash update, release day 31 December 1999 [!]. This update allows the board to recognize HDs larger than 34 GB, which was my main need. In a matter of minutes, I was up & running!

However, I was sad of not supporting the HD's UDMA66 feature...

After some reading, I decided to go for a Intel i820 based motherboard. After all, the i820 well known problems, only affect the ECC [Error Correction Code] memory, but NOT regular DIMMs. And even if you own ECC hardware, you still can use it, but the ECC feature will be disabled.

The only i820 board I found, was an ASUS P3C 2000. It had / has [?] everything I need:

- Pentium 3 @ 1 GHz / FB @ 133 Mhz

- 4 x DIMM slots

- 2 x UDMA66 controllers

- AGP 4x transfers

- 5 PCI slots

Because I also bought one of the very first P600 @ 133 FB MHz CPUs, and because the Annihilator PRO can do AGP 4x, that ASUS thing looked the very best answer I was going to get.

I bought the P3C 2000 and nothing went right during the last seven days. The stupid motherboard, just refused to display anything on screen, even after tweaking all the jumpers to the safest possible settings. The display couldn't be initialized, when using the Annihilator PRO, a regular TNT video card, and even an old Mystique PCI.

The board could only be damaged, since the system didn't "beep" a single error and didn't display a single picture! Horror!

After too many experiments, I decided to go and request to change the damaged ASUS P3C 2000 for a new one. So I did, but the vendors, demanded to test the faulty hardware @ their own lab. The faulty hardware was indeed faulty, showing them the same abilities [or total lack of...] as before :)

I was to get another ASUS P3C 2000, as a replacement, but - surprise, surprise! - this second silicon thing was to behave exactly like "her" previous "sister"... This time, the problem was NOT detected by me, but by the folks who were giving me the after-buying assistance. Again, they simply couldn't convince the crap ASUS to initialize the AGP slot and display a simple image!

I was told to get back to them the "next day", in order to pick "a fully tested ASUS board". As if such thing exists :)

I returned home very sad. Buying all these hardware costs money and time, and it really is a shame when things go wrong. Unfortunately, things would go MUCH WORST! HELL!

Once back home, I was really needing to use the PC to deliver some works, so I reinstalled my great FIC VB-601 and did what I had to do, having no problems!! Great hardware, the FIC!

The next day, to make it short, a third ASUS was delivered to me and, for the third time in a row, the board simply didn't boot up, un-capable of "beeping" and showing images, giving ZERO feedback of whatever was happening! What a ridiculous piece of hardware!

Hours later, I managed to install a new FIC KA611 board, with the new VIA APOLLO PRO 133 chipset. It booted up in no time!! I was back in business, although I still had to pick a refund, as the FIC is not as expensive, as the ASUS.

My problems were over, so I thougth... but no! In a few hours time, after some strange file problems, I came to the conclusion that I had lost over 3 GB of data, from the HDs! I can't explain what happened, for sure, but I can give you some advises, that might just save you from facing the nightmare I faced:

- no matter how many CDROMs you need, do backup ALL your files, before ANY attempt to upgrade your PC's hardware.

- if you are using very recent hardware [P600 @ 133 FB MHz / Intel i8x0, very large HDs], beware with compatibility problems...

- note that an UDMA66 device should live alone on an IDE bus, or coupled with another UDMA66 HD. Despite documentation not referring it, UDMA66 and UDMA33, on a UDMA66 interface, via a UDMA66 cable, is a configuration very prone to data loss! That was what happened to me, before I decided to go for for a primary IDE with both the 40.9 GB MAXTORs, and a secondary controller with the 17.4 GB devils.

Everything is nearly fine now, but I am so very tired...

One more thing: Windows 2000 is a MUST for people running TOP GEAR hardware! I am using Windows 2000 PRO, freshly installed with my new hardware, and - for now - I'll just confess that this is a monster Operating System, that does a superb work on memory management!! Much, much better than any previous NT and Windows 9x.

Countdown to 1 YEAR OLD

On March, this website will be one year old. I can only thank YOU, the visitor, for your feedback and regular reading! Keep supporting amateur websites.

In order to compensate for the lack of updates on February 2000, I will try hard to have DAILY UPDATES on March 2000!