Well my latest fight with technology deserves a writeup. After fighting with a ME -> Windows 2000 upgrade on a Presario 5000 (PIII 1.0GHZ 256 MB RAM, 40GB HD) I was tasked to upgrade the video card. Now, in honesty, the upgrade to Windows 2000 was in response to remove the crappy Win 9X relesae that is Millennium edition.
The new video card was required by the kids to play The Sims 2 (32MB Video memory minimum). The integrated Intel 810 Graphics on this MB has 4MB of memory. Now, the Intel 810 chipset MB provides for disabling the onboard graphics controller, however Compaq's implementation sucks as dows Windows 2000's ability to disable such devices. Despite finally finding the spot in the bios (use F10 to enter) to disable, Windows 2000 decided to blatently ignore my request.
My last effort to get 2nd video card to be used as primary was to install Windows XP and disable the Intel 810. Well Windows XP is much smarter. After install, it used new video card automatically or in response to the BIOS setting. What a pain! Do not buy a Compaq or HP. For their "model" of a comptuer, in this case Presario 5000, there are about 500 (no lie) variations that makes it impossible to find out whats inside these machines.
Oh, I also learned that Windows XP SP2 appears to run just as fast, if not faster than Windows 2000 on PIII machines of this spec.
Some Links:
http://support.intel.com/support/graphics/intel810/sb/CS-009136.htm
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