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COMPUTER TIPS AMD 1GHz Processor Runs At The Wrong Speed Q I am building the “PC To Die For” as described in the June & July issues of SILICON CHIP and I have an AMD A1000AMT3C (1GHz) processor and an Asus A7V­133C Rev 1.05 motherboard with Rev 1005A BIOS. In jumper-free mode the BIOS is incorrectly reporting a 750MHz processor. I have visited the Asus website and have noted that numerous people are having the same problem but very few suggestions on how to rectify it. I was wondering if you were aware of this problem and/or any remedies. I am loathe to tackle the jumper settings as I do not know the FSB (front side bus) frequency, multiplier and core voltage settings for this processor. (N. E.) Your 1GHz Athlon processor has a 266MHz front side bus (FSB), as opposed to the lower-specced version which runs with a 200MHz front side bus This means that you have to change the “CPU Frequency” setting in the system BIOS from 100MHz to 133MHz. To do that, go to the “Advanced” menu screen in the system BIOS (see page 16 of the July 2001 issue) and change the “Operating Frequency Setting” entry from “Standard” to “User Define”. This done, you can then change the “CPU Frequency” A Video cards & shared IRQs Q I am experiencing problems with a Via chipset mother­board-based PC. When running programs that use the soundcard, it can crash. The TNT2 M64 video card and the soundcard both share IRQ11. I have IRQ 5 free and tried to reassign one of the cards to that IRQ. However, when I de-select “automatic settings” to allow me to edit the IRQs and memory addresses, Windows tells me that I cannot change the setting. If this IRQ “conflict” is the source of my problems, how can I get around it? On my other PC, a Gigabyte-based PC, IRQ 11 is shared with the same type of video card and a Realtek network card (install­ing the network card on the other PC is what started a whole raft of seemingly unresolvable problems). Any suggestions that can help me eliminate this problem will be appreciated. If the IRQ sharing is causing a conflict, how do I get around it? (M. T.) It sounds like you’re using the first PCI slot on both PCs (note: subsequent feedback indicated that this was indeed the case). Many motherboards force the AGP (video card) slot to share an IRQ with the first PCI slot but video cards often don’t like sharing an IRQ. If you have a soundcard or network A ICS & thin ethernet networks Q I have been following your articles on home networking for sometime and found them very helpful. The December 2000 issue covered shared internet connections for star topology home net­works. Is it possible to use Windows ICS for daisy-chain topolo­gy; ie, thin ethernet 75-ohm coax, BNC home networks? (G. M.) Yes, you can use ICS with a 75-ohm coax (10-Base200) network. You set it up in exactly the same way as for a star network. It’s the networking protocol (ie, TCP/IP) that’s important here, not the network topology. A 38  Silicon Chip from 100MHz to 133MHz. The “CPU Clock Multi­plier” setting should be 7.5 (ie, 7.5 x 133 = 1000, or there­abouts). That’s it – you can let the system auto-detect the Vcore (core voltage) for the processor. You don’t have to play around with jumpers on the motherboard and indeed it’s preferable not to unless you are very experienced. The reason your system is currently limited to 750MHz is because the Standard setting locks the bus frequency to 100MHz and, in addition, the CPU has its multiplier locked (to 7.5 in this case) – ie, 7.5 x 100 = 750MHz. card plugged into the first PCI slot, try moving it to another slot (eg, slot 3 or 4). That way, the card should grab one of the free IRQs. In fact, it’s always best to leave the first PCI slot free if you are using an AGP video card, to avoid IRQ conflicts. The first PCI slot is used only if you don’t have an AGP video card (or if the card is happy to share). If you are using Windows 98/Me, make sure that you have PnP OS enabled in your system BIOS. Also, don’t assign fixed IRQs to any of the PCI slots – set this to Auto instead and don’t reserve any IRQs for legacy devices (unless you have ISA cards). By the way, it’s standard practice under Windows 98/Me to remove the relevant drivers (in Device Manager) before removing an item of hardware, even if you are only moving it from one PCI slot to another. Don’t do too much at once. Get the system working with the video card first and make sure it’s stable. Then add the sound card and make sure this is working before installing the network card. It’s also a good idea to download and install the latest Via 4-In-1 drivers since your motherboard has a Via chipset, plus any driver updates for your sound card. www.siliconchip.com.au Checking your email from another PC Q I’m having trouble with my com puter and am unable to access my email. Therefore, I am trying a friend’s computer. Is it possible to access my email account from a remote computer and if so, how? (L.S.) Provided your ISP supports this facility, the easiest way to access your email from a remote computer is to point the web browser to www. mail2web.com (ie, using Internet Explorer, not the email client). Enter in your email address and password when prompted and the site will list all the emails in your POP3 mail­box. You can then down-load these, read your mail and even delete mail from the POP3 box. Another way is to create a new email account on your friend’s computer. By doing this, you will be able to dial into his/her ISP in the normal manner and retrieve mail from your ISP’s POP3 mailbox. Assuming that A you’re using Outlook Express, click Tools, Accounts, Mail, Add and follow the wizard to set up the account. You must enter your ISP’s mail server address for the POP3 server but the SMTP server and any other settings should be the same as that used by your friend. Of course, you must use your own name and email address where required. Another method is to set up an additional dial-up connec­ tion on your friend’s machine, so that you can connect to your own ISP. To do this, double-click My Computer, double-click Dial-Up Networking, double click Make A New Connection and follow the wizard to set up your Internet account and email exactly as you originally did for your own machine. When setup is completed, an additional dial-up icon will appear on the desktop and you can then choose which ISP you want to dial. Getting rid of the log-on password Q I recently decided to network my two computers so I bought two identical network cards at a computer swap meeting, together with the necessary cable and fittings. I fitted the cards, ran the cable, then installed the network on the Win95 machine. It worked like a charm – Windows 95 found the network card, installed the necessary drivers or whatever, then told me it was ready to go. Only prob­lem is that now I have to enter a *!<at>? password every time I boot the machine! (J. L.) No, you don’t have to do that. If you specified a pass­word when you set up the networking, simply change A it to no password by double-clicking the passwords icon in Control Panel, then clicking the “Change Windows Password” button. Enter your old password, leave the “New Password” and “Confirm New Password” fields blank and click OK, That done, double-click the Network icon in Control Panel to launch the Network configuration dialog box. Click the down button for the “Primary Network Logon” and choose “Windows Logon” from the list. When you reboot – voila! – no more *!<at>? password required (note: you may have to reboot twice – once for the changes to take effect). Freesco – A Simple Linux Internet Gateway Looking for a simple Internet gateway to share an Internet connection? Then take a look at Freesco available at http://www.freesco.org Freesco is a single diskette (1.44Mb) Linux Internet Gateway with all the necessary bells & whistles (runs in less than 6Mb RAM and includes DHCP, NAT, named and telnetd). I run it on an old Pentium P75 with 16Mb of RAM & 56Kb modem and it supports my five workstations running a variety of Internet application simultaneously – Stephen Wright, VK2KHA. www.siliconchip.com.au Connecting drives to the Asus A7V-133 motherboard Q I enjoyed the article on “A PC To Die For” but changed some of the components for my PC (although it’s basically the same). If I understand it right, the Asus A7V-133 motherboard has two IDE controllers: Via and Promise. Does this mean that I can run both of my CD drives as master units (one on each controller), rather than as master and slave? I currently have the burner drive as the master and the CD-R as the slave. The hard disk drives (HDDs) are master/slave. (N. L.) Yes, you can run both CD drives as masters – just put one as master on the primary IDE port and the other as master on the secondary IDE port. In fact, this is the way to go if you want to copy to a CD-ROM burn­er. The two hard disk drives can be run from the Promise Ultra ATA100 ports. You can either run them as master/slave as you have done or, better still, run them both as masters – one on each port. A Internet Connection Sharing and MIRC Q I have a network set up with Internet Connection Sharing, with the ICS computer connected to a cable modem. Everything works fine except when I try to send direct connect chats using MIRC or any other chat software. People can send me messages but I can not chat from the networked computers. However, I can do so OK from the ICS computer direct, or when I dial out from one of the workstations. Any ideas on how I can get these chats to work properly? (F. K.) Go to www.yahoo.com and search for “ICS AND mirc” (without the inverted commas). You’ll find lots of informa­ tion on working around your problem. No guarantees though – we haven’t tested the solutions offered. A November 2001  39