Performance DROPS with 2nd HD

[gordone]

Before you give up on the PC, have you thought about taking it into a tech? They'll probably have specialized diagnostics tools to see if any of the hardware if faulty. It sounds like it would be worth the $$ if you have alot of projects depending on it not exploding. I'd avoid Best Buy (Geek Squad my a*s!), and look for some local small-time PC shops. We seem to have alot of those in my neck of the woods (Philly)

Sorry you're having problems, and I hope you get them all solved soon!

 

[ocnor]

Thinking back to the time that I had a motherboard with a VIA KT266 chipset I remembered that my Geforce video card caused the same problems that you have. Even with the 4 in 1 drivers it still crashed often. If you can get your hands on an ATI video card to rule out that as the cause it would be helpful in trouble shooting. If you are going to buy new ram then don't get anything less than pc3200. Since ram is backward compatible you can still run it at a lower fsb than it's rated speed.