Changing BIOS settings to avoid Dropped Frames???

[dannee]

I upgraded from Windows ME to Windows XP and also added a new hard drive at the same time. Upgrade maybe the wrong term. It was a complete version of XP, starting from scratch on a brand new hard drive. Evidently I messed things up when I did this because I get zero dropped frames when capturing to the master (boot) drive but gets LOTS of dropped frames when capturing to my slave drive.

This is the way I had it set up. Master and slave on the same cable. Master hooked to the end connector (black) and slave to the middle connector (gray). This cable is the finer ribbed cable with a blue cnnector on the end that goes into the motherboard. I read somewhere that this is the faster cable. My original hard drive is a Ultra DMA hard drive. I am confused, Is this cable called a channel or is each connector on the cable called a channel and what is the "bus". I'm guessing the cable is the channel since it is connected to the "primary" on the motherboard, hence - "Primary channel". My CD\DVD ROM and my CD Writer are connected to the other cable (the coarser ribbed cable) and connected to the slot on the motherboard labeled "Secondary".

After posting an earlier thread called "MANY dropped frames on second drive and zero on primary drive", I learned from some very helpful members that I have my hard drives and CD ROMs configured incorrectly, thereby dropping a lot of frames during capture. So I want to start all over and do every thing right this time.

After changing to XP and adding the extra drive, I was not given the opportunity to change anything in BIOS and didn't know I needed to make some changes there before using my new set up. Now I learn I need to make some changes in BIOS but have never gotten there on my own. I watched as the salesman made some minor changes a year ago when I got my computer as he went into BIOS. When the screen that says COMPAQ comes up there is a blinking white box in the upper right hand corner and he says that is when I can get into BIOS. I just learned I can try DEL or F1 or it could be another F(X) key so I will keep trying until I get the right one.

If I choose to install XP on my other smaller drive 40GB and use the larger drive 80GB strictly for capturing, should I start by hooking up only the drive I want to install XP on and then after I'm all set up there, then do I add the other hard drive? or do I try to install & add the extra hard drive at the same time?

I want to wait for further instructions before I proceed.

Thank you in advance.

dannee

[SimonH]

A bit of misunderstanding here methinks.
Firstly, I meant create a new thread for the 3rd item on your last post (about merging clips etc) as it is a different subject, but never mind, maybe I should've been clearer, but you're obviously keen to learn, and here we are.

Secondly, I think you also misunderstood patrickm. When talking about changing BIOS settings, he was specifically referring to installing WinXP. You were having trouble with your system finding your boot drive.

In your BIOS, you can change the order in which your system tries to boot, such as Floppy, IDE-0, CD-ROM. With this setup, your system would first search the floppy drive for a disk with a bootsector, failing this (if there was no disk in the drive), it would try IDE-0 (presumably a hard disk drive), and failing this, it would try to boot from CD-ROM. When installing WinXP, he was suggesting that you set your CD-ROM as the first drive in the list, so your computer would try this drive first, and start WinXP setup from the WinXP CD-ROM. After the 1st stage of setup, your system reboots before continuing, patrickm was suggesting you go back into the BIOS at this stage and set the HDD you are installing WinXP to as the first drive in the list, so it would boot from this drive, and continue setup.

Is this clearer?

Obviously this has nothing to do with capturing or dropped frames, but never mind. I don't know specifically how you change the boot order in your COMPAQ BIOS, as they are usually customized by COMPAQ, and I don't have a COMPAQ PC. Maybe a visit to the HP-COMPAQ support site is in order (http://support.hp.com). You can always try to get into the BIOS and have a look around, but not change anything. There is usually an option to exit without saving changes anyway. Try pressing [ESC] if you get frightened by it all !!!

I am confused, Is this cable called a channel or is each connector on the cable called a channel and what is the "bus".

The cable is called an IDE cable. Think of a channel as the socket on the motherboard that this cable plugs into, ie. IDE-0 is the primary IDE channel and IDE-1 is the secondary IDE channel. You can have 2 devices (1 MASTER, 1 SLAVE - but you know this) per channel, hence the 2 other connectors on the cable. The "bus" can be considered as the IDE channels in general, specifically the IDE bus.

If I choose to install XP on my other smaller drive 40GB and use the larger drive 80GB strictly for capturing, should I start by hooking up only the drive I want to install XP on and then after I'm all set up there, then do I add the other hard drive? or do I try to install & add the extra hard drive at the same time?

Strictly speaking, this isn't necessary, however in your case, maybe it would be agood idea. It may avoid any confusion, and once you have things up and running, you can add your extra devices to your IDE connectors.

On another note. the IDE configuration you have at the moment is how I personally would set up your devices (HDD's on one channel and ATAPI (CD-ROM) devices on another), and I have never had trouble with this type of configuration. However, there are interesting arguments for having the 2 HDD's on different IDE channels, for better multitasking. Once you have your system up and running with a clean WinXP installation, maybe you could try setting both HDD's to MASTER, and try running them on separate cables, with no CD-ROM's, just to see how you get on. If you always have trouble capturing to the same HDD, whether it's the boot drive or not, maybe you should try to get it swapped for another.

Some food for thought there - should keep you busy (or confused!) for a while.

Good Luck!

[dannee]

Hi SimonH,

It was my fault. I just misunderstood. I did start a new thread on the TMPGE issue. At least I got 50% of the instructions right!!

Now I understand much better about the BIOS issue. And since it has nothing to do with the frames dropping problem, I am going back to my original thread.

I don't believe that I am the only person on this planet who has had or is having a frame dropping issue on one hard drive and not the other. And since the subject of this thread will be very confusing to some, I don't think it will help anyone and may only confuse more. If I was already confused, then read this topic, I know I would be even more confused.

So I will be back on the other thread in a couple of days. We are getting ready to have a tropical storm here in the next 2 days ( if the system stays on it's present course) and maybe even a hurricane if it stalls in the Gulf of Mexico. I live just west of Panama City Beach, Florida, USA. There are some things I need to do to prepare for the storm (like anchoring my trailer to some trees - it worked for the last hurricane we had).

And yes I am clear on the port\cable\channel issue. Thank you so much for being patient with me.

dannee