CPCUG Build Team
November 1998 Seminar
Answers to Selected Audience Questions
Q1. One monitor I am considering is a 17" Sony
GMD-200PS. It has two inputs,
a 15 pin SVGA connector and five BNC connections. What
are these inputs and
how should they be useful in a home computer?
A1. The five BNC connections directly control the Red,
Blue, and Green signals, and
the horizontal and vertical syncs. Used mostly on Sun and
Apple systems the SVGA
connector contains the same types of connections. There are
no apparent differences
between the two types of connectors and no particular
advantage/disadvantage for the
home user.
Q2. What are the differences between SCSI and USB?
A2. SCSI is a high bandwidth parallel bus used primarily
for rotating storage devices
(e.g. hard drives, CD-ROM drives) and some peripheral devices
such as scanners. SCSI
devices can be both internal and external. USB, a new
emerging buss, is a high speed serial
connection linking external devices such as mice, video displays,
printers, video cameras,
digital cameras, and a host of others.
Q3. What's the difference in capability between MPEG1 and MPEG2?
A3. The major difference between MPEG1 and MPEG2
are the rate at which
bit information is processed and the ability of MPEG2 to support
fully interlaced
video. This provides MPEG2 with the ability to process
information at a rate of
up to four times that of MPEG1. (source Compaq web page).
MPEG2 is the current
standard.
Q4. Is it time to buy DVD Rom instead of CD ROM?
A4. DVDs, or Digital Versatile Drives, are still
somewhat new in the computer field.
Although DVD movies are readily available in stores, use as a
storage media for
computers is still limited. Changes in the DVD ROM
specifications still make this
a changing area for computer applications. Expect
more changes as different vendors
fight out the standards. Once settled, the costs for DVD
drives and media will come
down.
Q5. What are the essential differences between Windows 98 and Windows NT?
A5. From an outward appearance there may be no
visible differences between the
two operating systems. However, inside, there are vast
differences. The very heart
of each operating system, the kernel, is based on different
foundations. Windows 98
and its predecessors is built on DOS and uses both 16 bit and 32
bit models. Windows NT
is based on the mach kernel, a full 32 bit system, and provides a
much greater degree of
system management and security. Microsoft has indicated
that Windows 98 is the end of
the line, with subsequent home based systems based on the NT
model and kernel. Many
software products that run under Windows 98 (Win32
specifications) also run
under Windows NT.
Q6. Will the CD-RW serve as well or better than the ZIP or JAZZ drives?
A6. CD-RW can store about 500 megabytes of rotating
storage; ZIP can handle about
100 megabytes with 200 megabytes available in the near future;
and JAZZ stores from
1 to 2 gigabytes of storage. The primary issue is can
you read any of the media in a few
years and the answer may be no. So for contemporary usage,
any of the three is OK, just
be careful about archival storage.
Q7. What upgrades are reasonable to try?
A7. If you're capable of understanding your computer,
solving problems, and handy with
a phillips screwdriver, virtually any upgrade is both reasonable
and easy. Memory upgrades
are usually the easiest, processor upgrades are easy too, but
disk drive upgrades are the
most difficult since you have to move and possibly adjust all the
software parameters.
Most hardware upgrades have taken me a few hours, most disk drive
upgrades have taken
several days.
Q8. What problems might be encountered in configuring
a computer with
three parallel ports?
A8. Perhaps there might be no problems at all since the
underlying operating system
can handle three parallel ports. However, if your system is
using all available interrupts,
then you will have to share. Windows 98 can usually handle
this quite well, other operating
systems may have difficulties. Why not consider a
switch and use one parallel port and then
switch between the three devices manually?
Q9. What PC configuration would be best for good performance on the internet?
A9. Almost any reasonable speed Penitum-class processor
with 64 megabytes will
suffice. However its the modem that will determine most of
the performance factors.
Go for the fastest you can afford, V.90, ADSL, Bri-ISDN, Cable,
or direct connect. Also,
use a large monitor if you go web surfing, 17" bare minimum,
19" if you use a lot of web
windows.
Q10. What is the best method for a complete backup/clone of a hard disk?
A10. Using a Tape will take several hours and
tapes. If you need to restore a
crashed drive, it will take tens of hours to accomplish.
Instead of a complete backup,
I usually do a backup of the valuable data itself and would
re-install the applications
from scratch. Also, you can copy a hard drive to one that's
the same or larger with
Power Quest's (PQ) DriveCopy. I used this to upgrade
from a 3.2 gig drive to a
4.3 gig drive.
Q11. Hardware upgrades are difficult, what is the best way to prepare for one?
A11. First of all, hardware upgrades are not always that
difficult. After you Backup,
Backup, Backup, then, make sure you understand your current
system and
know what the different manuals say. I would begin by
making only one change at a time
and after each change verify that everything is totally working
again before making the next
change. Adding memory is straight forward, swapping one
component for another, and possibly
even a processor change should go smoothly. Changing a
motherboard is complex and will
change Windows 98 parameters, but generally it is still easy to
do. Most often, a loose
connector will be the culprit for any problems.
Q12. What are the issues to be aware of in going from a 14" monitor to a 17" one?
A12. If your system has a 14" monitor, its probably
a VGA device and may not be compatible
with SVGA technology. Also, the 17" monitors of today
are usually multifrequency devices
and may not work with the older video cards that your system may
contain. Today, we advise
people to get 2 to 4 megabytes of video memory to properly drive
the 17" and larger monitors,
and your system may only have 256 to 512K of memory, limiting you
to 16 colors.
Q13. How many "pass thru" devices can be
added to the parallel port? Or should
a USB be added or SCSI be added for add-on devices?
A13. How many devices are possible? I only know of
3: ZIP drives, pluggable drives,
and printers. As long as the cable length is kept under 10
feet and the device loading
kept to 3 TTL loads you're probably OK. USB is
probably a better consideration, but
I don't think SCSI is in this ball park. USB and SCSI are
busses, not pass-thrus, and
therefore are more tolerant of adding devices.
Q14. Can a P90 chip be replaced with a high speed AMD or Cyrix chip?
A14. Its not a question of the chip, its a question of
the motherboard and BIOS.
If the motherboard and BIOS have settings for your target
processor, then replacement
is possible. However, in all probability, your motherboard
is much too old to handle
today's processors and memory requirements. You'll probably
wind up replacing
you motherboard, processor, and memory.
Q15. Pros and cons of Imation LS-120 super drive compared with ZIP drive.
A15. The LS-120 drive is a 3 1/2" form factor that
can also read and write regular
1.44 meg and 2.88 meg floppy disks, the ZIP drive cannot do
this. The LS-120 also
holds 20% more data than the ZIP disk. However, ZIP drives
and disks are slightly
less expensive than LS-120 drives and disks. Within 2 years
one or both of these
will probably be replaced with other media.
Q16. Will PCs ever become user friendly and easy for
the novice to maintain
and keep up an running (i.e. Bulletproof)?
A16. Many people say that Windows 95/98 is making the
computer "user friendly."
However all this, like beauty, is in the eyes of the
beholder. With computers in about
30% of all homes today, mostly PCs, they are getting close to be
user friendly. Will they
ever be bulletproof, probably not with the current
architecture. After all the main
processor contains about 7.5 million transistors and every
plug-in card contains another
several million transistors each. Keeping all these in line
is not easy, but maybe some day
you friendly PC will be as easy to use and maintain as your
automobile.
Q17. What is the recommended partition of a 6.4 to 10 GB drive?
A17. Much of partitioning is based on the operating
system you are using. For Win98,
a single partition of 8 gigs or less uses only 4K bytes for each
cluster. WinNT cannot
handle partitions above 4 gigs as its primary partition.
Other operating systems may
have different partition needs. Unless there is some
special reason to partition, such as
running multiple operating systems on the same drive, then I
would configure with a
single partition without the use of special software drives.
Q18. What factors should be considered in partitioning decisions?
A18. See the answer to Question 17.
Q19. What are the pros and cons of speakers in a monitor?
A19. No particular advantage or disadvantage.
Space is one consideration, quality
of the speakers is another. What if they burn out or fail
in some way...how easy is
it to replace the ones inside versus the ones outside?
Q20. Will I need SCSI on my new system that will have
a tape, scanner,
Zip, CD-ROM, and sound card? I'm afraid I'll run out of
IRQs.
A20. You may indeed run out of IRQs, but lets see.
Tape plugs into the floppy or
IDE port (no IRQs used), the scanner plugs into the serial, SCSI,
or USB port (no
new IRQs used); the ZIP uses an IDE, parallel, or usb port (no
new IRQs used); the
CD-ROM uses an IDE/SCSI connection (no new IRQs used); and the
sound card uses
an interrupt, usually 5. So at best you have one additional
IRQ. Depending upon your
other devices, you may not need SCSI at all. However, you
may be using 3 of the 4
available IDE connections.
Q21. What is the best Operating System to buy?
A21. What do you mean by "best?" What
are you planning on doing? Some say
Windows is best, some say MAC OS is best, clearly Linux is best,
but some would
argue that Solaris is best, and there are still some that insist
that DOS is best.
Q22. What is a "drive bay" and what are the
typical uses of five drive
bays?
A22. A "drive bay" is a place in a typical
computer case for mounting a 5 1/4"
device such as a CD-ROM. In a tall tower, one may install
many devices in addition
to the CD-ROM, such as : a tape backup drive, an internal ZIP or
JAZZ drive, a
pluggable hard drive, PC Card adapters, and a CD-ROM writer.
Q23. Could there be any problems in using a four-year
old SVGA monitor in a
new Pentium II 350 system?
A23. Yes. The older monitors did not have the
multifrequency range of today's
monitors. A new Pentium II-350 system is likely to have a
new AGP or PCI video
card capable of driving the multifrequency monitors of
today. My older SVGA
monitors usually behave poorly with the newer cards, you may be
in the same boat.
Q24. If you are buying a new computer, should you
insist on having several
slots?
A24. Today's computers have many components on the
motherboard such as I/O and
the floppy and hard disk ports. However, motherboard slots
are usually needed for
video, modem, SCSI adapters, local area network cards, and other
specialized cards.
A typical computer today has 4 PCI slots, 2 ISA
slots, and one sharable PCI/ISA slot.
The direction for tomorrow is to phase out ISA technology in
favor of PCI and extended
PCI technology along with USB. Some motherboards have 3 PCI
slots with 3 ISA slots
and one sharable ISA/PCI slot. This is especially useful if
you have older ISA cards.
Q25. What are the differences between a Celeron 300A and a Pentium II-450?
A25. Processor speed is the first major difference, 300
Mhz for the Celeron 300A
versus 450 MHz for the Pentium II. Additionally, the
Pentium II has 512K of cache
(running at half the processor speed) versus 128K cache (running
at full processor
speed) for the Celeron 300A. The Pentium II-450 runs its
external clock at 100 Mhz
while the Celeron 300A runs at 66 Mhz. This affects the
speed of main memory.
Both have the same basic architecture in the CPU and FPU.
And of course, the 300A
sells for about $70 while the 450 sells for about $525. (Unlike
the Pentium II-450,
the Celeron 300A can sometimes be overclocked to 450 Mhz internal
clock speeds
bringing the two within 20% of performance benchmarks).
Q26. If you want a scanner and a better video card to
play moderately
complicated games, does a Celeron 300A give you nearly as good
results as a
Pentium II?
A26. Except for some very high performance needs,
especially Server based systems,
the Celeron 300A and greater family should give you reasonable
performance. The
scanner should not be an issue regardless of the CPU, only the
games. See the Internet
news groups for a better understanding of games and specific
CPUs. However, for a given
clock frequency, most of the benchmarks I've seen are not
significantly different between
the Pentium II and Celeron. See A25 too.
Q27. If you don't have dial up capability, can you
get to the CPCUG MIX
through TCP/IP?
A27. No. But you can get to the CPCUG web
site: http://www.cpcug.org
Q28. What factors should you consider in deciding whether to buy USB?
A28. USB is a new emerging technology. Products
from numerous vendors are
beginning to appear. All current motherboards that support
1998 series processors
have USB connections. If the vendor is well known, easily
reachable, and provides
a good warranty, and you are running Windows 98, I would take the
USB leap.
Q29. What are some of the better diagnostic programs
useful for trouble-
shooting your PC?
A29. In general there aren't any. Different
programs provide strengths in
different areas. Complicating this, are the vast
differences in configurations of
computers and motherboards. To get your system
started, the very best diagnostic
is a hardware device, a POST code checker. This will tell
you that the basic
hardware system (processor, memory, and some I/O) is
functioning. After this,
most software programs will provide performance characteristics
rather than
testing (let alone diagnostic testing). Perhaps a good
starting point for some
comprehensive testing is BCM Diagnostics (shareware) available on
the Build
CD-ROM also available from: http://www.bcmcom.com
However, most diagnostic
and testing programs usually excell in some areas, are poor in
other areas, and
almost always give false indications. Use only the latest
versions, especially on the
more modern motherboards and systems.
Q30. Are DVDs a good alternative to the devices it
competes against? Is
there a problem of having a single DVD standard?
A30. DVDs are an emerging device, available today in
both systems and laptops.
However most software is still CD-ROM based. Most, if not
all, DVD players
can read CD-ROMs, but only DVD version 3 players can reliably
read CDs, CD-Rs,
and CD-RW disks. A bare DVD drive will cost about 3 times
the cost of a similar
CD drive. There is no problem in having a single DVD
standard other than the
suppliers can't agree on what it should be! (This applies
not to basic DVD read only
disks, but to DVD-RAM and DVD-writable type disks). Video
DVDs are formatted
by region of the world (US is region 1) to comply with TV
standards. (see PC World
February 1999 issue for additional information).
Q31. If you buy a new computer and buy 128 Megabytes
of memory, can
you add more memory without throwing out any of your original
memory?
A31. Most of the current BX series motherboards come
with three memory slots.
If your memory is purchased as a single 128 Meg SDRAM, then two
additional
slots are available. If your memory is purchased as two 64
Meg SDRAMs, then
only one additional memory slot would be available.
Q32. To run Windows NT, is 64 megabytes of memory good enough?
A32. Although Windows NT can run in 64 megabytes, 128
megabytes is
recommended.
Q33. What are the trade-offs for an external versus internal modem?
A33. With an external modem, its easier to see the
lights, and they can sometimes
tell you a great deal about what's happening during your
connection cycle and if
the line somehow drops. An internal modem is less
expensive, since it gets its power
from the computer. Otherwise they are very much the same.
Q34. Do Socket 7 motherboards come with the same
features as Slot 1
motherboards, like the heat sensor, and fan speed sensing
circuitry?
A34. The heat sensor and fan speed sensing circuitry are
more functions of the
Intel BX chip set not the motherboard. Most Socket 7
motherboards are geared
for the older Pentium-class processors, while the BX chip set is
for the Pentium II-
class processors. AMD and others make socket 7 oriented
processors (K6 and
upcoming K7) which compete with the Intel Pentium II, Celeron
cache series, and
upcoming Pentium III product lines. Some Super Socket 7
boards can use the
PC100 memory SIMMS
Q35. Does Celeron 300A cpu drive 100 MHz bus?
A35. The Celeron 300A runs at an oscillator/front side
bus speed of 66MHz, not
100 MHz. Some people who overclock the chip have had
success running it at 100 Mhz.
The above answers are the
opinion of the author and do not necessarily reflect the
opinions of CPCUG nor the
CPCUG Build Team. They may not even be the right
answers.
Last Updated: 23 Feb 1999