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Pastimes : Dream Machine ( Build your own PC ) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Zeuspaul who wrote (47)	1/24/1998 2:54:00 PM
From: Street Walker	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 14778

**********Multiple Monitor Graphics Cards We have talked about these in the very early posts of this thread. For new commers, you may like to read my very first post on this thread for an introduction to multiple monitors in DAYTRADING, and others that follow. Here is a review from DIRK HENTE from another thread. From: +Dirk Hente Saturday, Jan 24 1998 4:03AM EST Reply # of 2425 [multiple monitor] The following points are some criteria to look for: 1. number of available PCI slots special graphic cards allow you to run mulpiple minitors, while standard graphic cards in a multiple monitor configuration need one PCI slot for one monitor. this is a big plus for special graphic cards . 2. Window splitting/spanning when you use multiple monitors your desktop area is spanned over all monitors. when you work with your software, usually pop-up menus open in the middle of your desktop area. in a multiple monitor configuration your menus become splitted and are hard to read. same applies, when you enlarge a window. when it pops up it shouldnt span over more than 1 monitor. the point here is, vendors of special hardware deliver special driver software preventing these negative side effects. 3. Monitor arrangement/Desktop layout let me give an example: if you have 4 monitors, these can be arranged e.g.: 2 x 2 or 4 in a row. lets say you run a resolution of 1024x768 on each monitor, you get a desktop size of 2048x1536 for the first case, and a size of 4096x768 for the second. the point here is, you are not free to arrange your monitors. it all depends on your card driver software. 4. support of different resolution/frequencies on different monitors usually you are allowed to run different types of monitors at different frequencies (horizontal and vertical). BUT, you may not be allowed to choose different resolutions. 5.WINDOWS 95/NT/98 windows 95 doesnt support multiple grahic cards. the only way to go is to use special graphic cards with special driver software. windows NT 'allows' multiple graphic cards windows 98 support multiple grahic cards (varibale physical arrangement of monitors, different resolutions & frequencies on each monitor, prevents 'window spanning' and 'window splitting') talking about PC's/Windows95/NT, there are basically 3 solutions for a multiple monitor setup: 1. special hardware (i dont like this solution) companies like Appian (http://www.appiantech.com/home.htm) and Colorgraphic(http://www.colorgfx.com/) offer graphic cards (and special driver software) for multiple monitor configurations. greatest advantage is,one single card can support multiple monitors (other solutions need one card for one monitor, so you may run into trouble with your PCI slots). next big advantage is, this solutions is applicable for WIN95. another plus is, special driver software is coming with these cards, which makes working in a multiple monitor environment a bit easier (e.g. no splitting of windows, windows are not popped up across multiple monitors). another point is, the physical arrangement of your monitors. e.g. 4 monitors can be aranged 2x2 or 4 in a row. with special graphic cards you are generally free to arrange your monitors. main draw back, you dont know what you get for your money, if you havent seen (used) these graphic cards. its hard to find tests about this stuff. resolution and bandwidth is not all. the analog part of your card (e.g. DACs) and the design of the card itself is important as well (usually not tested by pc magazines). Another influencing factor is the quality of your graphic card driver software (try it out with your standard card, compare the display quality when you switch between a microsoft driver and your vendors driver softwar; i did this with my old s3 (trio 64) graphic card, the ELSA s3 driver produced a much more sharper display than the micrsoft s3 driver) 2. multiple standard graphic cards & Windows NT there are several graphics cards available eg. MATROX/STB which can run under Windows NT in a multiple card configuration. if you read the description of the MATROX NT driver carefully you find out that, you can use MATROX MILLENIUM I & II and MATROX MYSTIQUE in a multiple monitor arrangement. MATROX allows up to 4 monitors in a 2x2 arrangement. Unfortunately, the WIN NT font quality of the Matrox cards is worse compared to WIN 95 (may be it has something to do with the Win NT fonts, i dont know). 3. Windows 98 i guess this is the solution to go for. main advantage is, you can use quite cheap graphic cards, eg S3 Trio 64V+, Virge (you dont need high end CAD graphic cards for your trading software) this solutin is available immediately if you are a beta tester. Windows 98 Beta 3 supports muliple graphic cards ( S3, ATI, Cirrus). at home, i am using 2 computers connected via ethernet and Wingate as my proxy server, with an ISDN connection to my ISP. one pc has a dual monitor set up with 2 matrox millennium cards running under win NT. my primary pc has a 133 pentium /Asus t2p4 mobo, overclocked to 166MHz/83 Mhz bus clock.

To: Zeuspaul who wrote (47)	1/30/1998 12:26:00 AM
From: Zeuspaul	Respond to of 14778

Re: SPD SDRAM addesses compatibility issues..maybe not I emailed Supermicro and asked about SDRAM support for their P6SLS motherboard. The Aberdeen site aberdeeninc.com indicated that one must use special SDRAM for INTEL 440 LX motherboards. I have seen this limitation mentioned at several other sites. There was no mention in the P6SLS manual so I asked for a clarification. I got a prompt response (less than 48 hrs.) They indicated that some SPD SDRAM is incorrectly programmed for 440LX motherboards (The latest chip set used for the Intel PII CPU). The Intel site developer.intel.com for the DK440LX motherboard made similar comments about SDRAM, indicating that one should use "tested" RAM It looks like I will have to spend some time looking for quality SDRAM. Here is the email response from Supermicro It looks like their BIOS addresses the issue. Regards Zeuspaul >>>>>We tested a lots of SDRAM (SPD and non-SPD) from different memory vendors. We found some incorrect SPD data with those SPD SDRAM modules. Probably this is the reason why some users, including our distributors sometimes, have problem with SDRAM memory detection. Therefore we provide the following three options in BIOS setup to work around those incorrect SPD data issue: In BIOS setup table, enter to "Chipset group". Find the item : > > " SDRAM > AUTOSIZING > SUPPORT". > There are 3 options for this item of BIOS settings: > 1. AUTO(default value) - BIOS will try to read several data from SPD(serial presence detection) EEPROM. > > If these data are reasonable, BIOS will assume the whole SPD data is > correct and use those SPD data to setup chipset SDRAM timing, driving > strength and size. > 2. ENABLE - BIOS will size the SDRAM modules and ignore all the SPD > data. > 3. DISABLE --- BIOS will take the whole SPD data. > > We tested a lot of SDRAM modules from different manufactures and found > > lots of SDRAM modules with wrong SPD data. > > This causes the BIOS reading wrong SPD data and running to memory > sizing > problem with " AUTO" default setting. > > I guess some other motherboard manufactures know this issue and their > BIOS ignore the SPD data as their BIOS default. > This way has another disadvantage: > 1. Without using SPD data, users waste money to buy SDRAM with SPD. > 2. BIOS can size the correct size but BIOS can not know the SDRAM > chips > quantity per module and may set to inappropriate signal driving > strength > memory controller registers. > > Therefore, please try to set "ENABLE" in BIOS CHIPSET setup item > " SDRAM AUTOSIZING SUPPORT" to work around this incorrect SPD SDRAM problem. > Best regards,