System Builder Tip: Server processor/CPU caveats when Intel server system building.

Yesterday, I mentioned that we had a bit of a struggle getting some Xeon 5130s working on what turned out to be a pre-production S5000PSL server board back when the Xeon 5130s were newly released. Blog post here: System Builder Tip: Intel S3000AH Server Board Series BIOS Updates Available.

When we sell server product, one of the selling "features" should be future upgrades to the server to meet further growth of the company. Yet, in today's server world, this is not the case.

How is that?

Let's say that in the case of the above S5000PSL we only installed a single Xeon processor. Say, the Intel Xeon 5130 SL9RX. We note that the Core Stepping is B2.

So, a year and a half down the road we need to add a second processor. The Xeon 5130 processor may still be in production, but we can only install a CPU with the same stepping code as the existing one, that is B2. More than likely, the stepping code on the then in production Xeon 5130 would be B3 or B4 or even higher! So, we would need to comb the Internet looking for the right one. Or, we would have to buy two (2) processors from our supplier anyway.

And therein lies a very serious caveat: The earlier revision of the server board may not support the newer stepping code CPUs or more Cores even with a BIOS update!

Here is a practical example based on an experience we just had with a server upgrade:

Here is a picture of the PBA code on the existing S3000AH that we attempted to upgrade yesterday to a Xeon X3210 Quad Core processor:


Note that the last three digits in the PBA number are -204. This is the board's revision level.

Now, here is what Intel's Web site states for X3210 compatibility:


In the last column we have some Notes numbers.

Here they are:

Our Intel Xeon X3210 CPU in note 7 requires a server board revision of -206 or above.

Thus, our installed S3000AH board at revision -204 does not qualify. Even with a BIOS update, the -204 board will not support the X3210 or X3220 Xeon Quad Core processors as indicated in the above Notes. In every other way, they are essentially identical!

We were fortunate that we had an S3000AH with a newer revision level here in the shop:


Our in-shop server board was revision -207.

When doing a straight across upgrade like this, that is, one S3000AH -204 for one S3000AH -207 one must make sure to flash the -204 to the newest BIOS version FIRST. Then boot the system up into the BIOS to verify the settings, then boot into the OS, with the -204 board still in the system, to make sure the OS doesn't take a fit over the BIOS update. Everything should work out okay up to this point.

To rephrase: Before making any physical changes to the server:

1. Update the BIOS.
2. Boot into the BIOS and verify settings especially the RAID controller LSI vs. Intel Matrix, save, and reboot if any changes were made by the BIOS update.
3. Boot into the OS to verify its acceptance of the new BIOS.
4. Shutdown the system.

Begin the hardware swap after that.

As soon as the server board swap is complete, boot directly to your BIOS update thumb drive and update the -207 to the S3000AH BIOS version as above (revision 42 as of this post).

Once the BIOS update is complete verify your BIOS settings as above!

There are two (2) RAID controllers built into this server board: The LSI based one and the Intel Matrix Technology one. Your OS may choke and not boot if the wrong one is configured.

If you had RAID array(s) configured on the previous server board, they will be picked up by the newer server board RAID controller with no issues. At least, that is what happened here with us as we verified the RAID controller type beforehand. Take note, both RAID controller versions picked up the RAID arrays, but the OS may still choke on the wrong controller!

When explaining to the client what may happen, we qualify our quote with options as far as what may happen if we run into this situation. Best case scenario and worst case scenario. We get approval for both as we provide costs for both.

Due to the complexity of inter-CPU stepping compatibility along with CPU type to server board revision level compatibility we always build our dual processor servers with two processors installed.

If our client is planning on having a large influx of employees over the life of the server, then we will install faster CPUs and more RAM too. We will build a server that will meet our client's needs for a minimum of two years as best as we can based on their budget.

If we are dealing with a smaller client with a rather static employee pool that only needs a one processor based server, we will sell a uniprocessor server system.

Given the above S3000AH server board revision compatibility situation, as well as the S5000PSL revision compatibility situation we were in before, we are careful about adopting new server technology.

In the case of early adopting, there are no guarantees that the server board revision purchased will be compatible with future CPUs. Thus, virtually no future upgrade scenarios will exist.

Some S3000AH specific Intel links:

• Intel Server Board S3000AH Qualified and supported Intel Processors.
• Intel Server Board S3000AH Technical Links.

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists

System Builder Tip: Intel S3000AH Server Board Series BIOS Updates Available

The Intel S3000AH series server board has received a recent BIOS update to version 42.

Product page can be found here: Intel S3000AH Server Board.

Gotta make sure that BIOS is up to date, especially in this case as we are installing a Xeon X3210 Quad Core processor into an existing server that had a Xeon 3050 installed.

Previous BIOS versions may not be compatible with Quad Core, so the BIOS should be updated before hand if possible.

For new system builds, having a Xeon 3000 series processor around can facilitate that.

That goes for any server board BTW.

A while back, we got caught with an early revision S5000PSL board that did not support the 5100 series processors we were installing into it. It was not a known issue at that time as the 5100 series Xeons were just released and we happened to get a couple of the early ones. It took a BIOS update to get things to spec, but we did not have a 5000 series processor to install in the board to update the BIOS!

It worked out in the end, as we were fortunate our supplier had later revision boards in stock, so we were no further behind on our build time! We had the replacement board next day.

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists

SBS 2K3 - All Versions: SBS KB926505 RipCurl update available via WSUS

One of the first steps in the SBS RipCurl (previous blog post on our RipCurl experiences & a RipCurl checklist PDF download) is to apply the KB926505 Vista and Outlook 2007 compatibility update.

It is now coming down to us as a critical update on WSUS:


Keep that in mind when considering to RipCurl your SBS boxes.

If you have approved the update in WSUS, and let it run via the Yellow Shield update installation request, then there is one less step to getting your SBS network Vista and Outlook 2007 compliant.

Microsoft KB 926505: Windows Small Business Server 2003: Windows Vista and Outlook 2007 compatibility update.

UPDATE: Added the above URL to KB926505.

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists

SBS 2K3 - All Versions: SBS RSS Update for W2K3 SP2 released via WSUS

For those who have been struggling with Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 2 on SBS, an update has been released via WSUS to deal with the Receive Side Scaling (RSS) network issue:


The update disables RSS!

The original Microsoft KB936594: You may experience network-related problems after you install Windows Server 2003 SP2 or the Scalable Networking Pack on a Windows Small Business Server 2003-based computer that has an advanced network adapter.

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists

Bleeding Edge: One time we got bloody ...

Working on a couple of different projects brought me to stumble across something I haven't seen in a very long time (image is freely available on the Web):

The above is an image of the ATI Rage Fury MAXX. A dual GPU card with 32 MB of DDR RAM dedicated to each GPU. It was released in approximately 1999.

In its day, it was truly bleeding edge. It was competing with VooDoo (remember them?), and nVidia's high end cards. We had a client who insisted on having it in a box we put together for him. Bleeding edge is always expensive, so this box was no different.

We made sure to let him know in writing and verbally that the card was not returnable, and that the system may not perform as he expected. He understood what he was getting himself into! ;)

Guess what? It didn't perform as he expected! 8*O

Those were the days that ATI had a bad rap for their drivers. And this card was a prime example of that situation.

It took less than a week for him to come back with the system to show us some absolutely wacky artifacts, and strange video breaking - the game would all of a sudden be missing the bottom corner and you could see the desktop behind. Sometimes it would be the top right corner or any of the corners.

We were on the phone with ATI support quite a bit in those days, and we paid for it.

Subsequent driver releases helped, but in the end the product was essentially discontinued (read abandoned) by ATI. :(

Our client was pretty good about the whole situation knowing to some degree what he was getting into. We made good on the situation by providing hours of free support time in shop.

Why bring this up?

Because, even today, the Bleeding Edge can hurt us.

From driver immaturity, or even the lack of drivers for bleeding edge products, we sometimes cannot provide a requested product to a client. Sometimes initial manufacturing deficiencies will show up in the first products of a production line. There are many reasons why first generation can be painful. ;)

How do we find that out today?

We research other people's experience with the product via the Internet. If there is very little information out there due to the newness of the product, depending on our client, we would then purchase the product and test it.

We pay the price in time investigating the product. We try and take the risk for our client. If things don't work out as in the above situation, we try and make sure that we make it right as best as we can.

It is the part of client service that we deem the cost of doing business.

It also provides us with the knowledge we need to advise our clients on what products and solutions will work best for their given needs and network infrastructure.

If something doesn't work as advertised, then we avoid it! :D

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists

SBS - Hard Drive Partitioning Schemes

There doesn't seem to be one guideline out there as far as how to partition a hard drive, or hard drives for Small Business Server.

Do we RAID our drives? Most certainly! We need that extra level of redundancy.

Surely no one puts together servers with only one hard disk or two hard disks without redundancy in it anymore?

Over the years, we have come up with a number of different hard drive setups depending on our client's business size and data volume needs.

A small client, say 5 to 15 seats, with a small volume of data would be setup as follows (physical disk properties & setup first with partitioning sub'd) :

• 2 x 320 GB RAID 1 array (non-hot swap)
• Primary System Partition: C: (310 GB)
• Swap and URL Cache Partition S: (10 GB)
• 2 x 320 GB RAID 1 array (non-hot swap)
• Data Partition I: (320 GB)

In the above setup, VSS snapshot data would be stored on the C: partition leaving the I: partition totally to client data.

We have clients with higher data volume demands, some growing as fast as 15 GB per month during their peak seasons.

For some of them, and our larger firms in the 25-45 seat range we would configure the following:

• 2 x 320 GB RAID 1 array (hot swap)
• Primary System Partition: C: (310 GB)
• Swap and URL Cache Partition S: (10 GB)
• 3 x 320 GB RAID 5 array - 620 GB usable (hot swap)
• Data Partition I: (620 GB)
• 1 x 320 GB Global Hot Spare (hot swap)

We keep all of the drives the same size for the principle reason of having the hot spare available for either of the arrays. That is why it is considered Global, because it can be inserted into any array on the RAID controller. A hot spare can also be dedicated to any one of the specific arrays.

For the larger data volume clients:

• 2 x 500 GB RAID 1 array (hot swap)
• Primary System Partition: C: (480 GB)
• Swap and URL Cache Partition S: (10 GB)
• 5 x 500 GB RAID 5 array - 2.0 TB usable (hot swap)
• Client Data Partition I: (500 GB)
• 2 x 500 GB RAID 1 array (hot swap)
• VSS & Server Data Partition J: (500 GB)
• 1 x 500 GB Global Hot Spare (hot Swap)

We put the swap file and ISA's URL cache (99.9% Premium installs) on a separate partition to prevent them from being fragmented on the system C: partition. It facilitates increased system speed.

The same reason is used for setting up the VSS (Volume Shadow copy Service) snapshot files on a different drive/partition than the volume that is being shadow copied.

Relative to the other components that are being configured in a server, hard drive storage is cheap. Seagate's ES Series Enterprise SATA drives command a 10% premium over their desktop drives for extra reliability built in. That figure is a small price to pay for drives designed to be always on and serving huge chunks of data on a daily basis.

At this point, SCSI/SAS does not provide the cost/size ROI benefit for pretty much all of our clients that SATA does. There are a few exceptions to that rule though not many in our SMB environment.

Of course, your mileage will vary! ;)

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists

Outlook 2003 - The messaging interface has returned an unknown error

We have a client that was receiving the following error when trying to print a public calendar:

The messaging interface has returned an unknown error

Okay, a simple search turns up the following Microsoft KB articles, but they are not relevant:

• KB 275186: "The messaging interface has returned an unknown error" error message when you forward a message in Outlook 2000 SR-1.
• KB 813517: "The messaging interface has returned an unknown error" error message when you create a new e-mail message or forward a message in Outlook 2002.
• KB 892450: You receive a "The messaging interface has returned an unknown error " error message when you try to use Outlook to make a change to a recurring appointment in the Calendar of your Hotmail account or of your MSN e-mail account.
• KB 814441: Error message when you try to read or to delete e-mail, or when you click "Send/Receive" in Outlook: "An unknown error has occurred" or "Messaging interface has caused an unknown error"

None of them applied.

Once, and only once did we get an error indicating permissions problems on the task list folder before the above mentioned error.

So, when printing the calendar view, we went to the Page Setup button, and disabled printing the tasks list.

It worked.

So far, we haven't been able to find out just where the permissions conflict is yet.

But, they are happy about being able to print out their calendar again.

Honourable mention to the following who provided the key to figuring out how to get things going again:

Experts-Exchange: The messaging interface has returned an unknown error.

MCSE.MS: The messaging interface has returned an unknown error.

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists

Microsoft Partner - Promoting your business on the new Solution Profiler

Apparently, we will need to build a solutions profile for our companies in order for clients to find us soon.

From what I understand, the client types in a problem/solution they are looking at and those partners that have the right key solution words would be brought up in the results.

Hopefully it will eliminate the Resource Directory's promotion of Gold and Certified members over us Registered level Small Business Specialists. Hopefully, it will avoid the snafu of trying to get our company properly listed in the Resource Directory! 8*0

Why is this important? As Susan Bradley points out in her introduction in the book Advanced Small Business Server 2003 Best Practices, the Gold Certified partners tried to convince her and her firm to avoid SBS (pg. xxxvii)! When we Registered level partners tend to know that SBS is an awesome product that can meet a broad range of client I.T. needs for a very reasonable cost.

It is in our experience as well, that small business I.T. shops that have obtained their Microsoft Small Business Specialist designation, are a lot more understanding of a small business' needs. Howz that? Well, we run our own small businesses don't we?

We understand the need to juggle our business needs according to cash flow, productivity and knowledge of our employees, applications that can serve our business needs, the technology needed today and tomorrow to meet those needs, and more.

As a result, we smaller Microsoft Small Business Specialists have a particular ability to address our client's small business needs.

We also have the time to invest in getting to know our client's business, their business model, and the special software application needs they may have for their industry. By investing this time, we are better able to design an SBS based solution that will meet their very specific needs.

We could not justify that kind of time investment in our client's business I.T. needs if we worked for a larger I.T. support company.

This time investment pays off in the end, as we can foster business relationships that can last decades!

So, invest some time in setting up your Solution Profile. Log on to the Partner site: Microsoft Partners Site (Worldwide Portal). Once signed in, click on the View/Manage your membership account button and head over to the Membership Center (has your little graph status level). The Solution Finder is under the "Requirements & Assets" heading/button.

It will be time consuming, especially for us small shops, but in the end, it will hopefully be worth it.

Thanks to David Overton's Blog for pointing this out: So your profile info is on MS Partner site and partner finder, so now you MUST update your solution profiles to be found - here is why and how it takes 10 mins.

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists

Windows Vista - VHD Evaluation Version Available

A Windows Vista Enterprise Evaluation VHD (Virtual Hard Drive) version is now available for download.

You can get it here: Microsoft Windows Vista 30-Day Eval VHD (Registration is required).

Once we downloaded and set it up on one of our Virtual Server 2005 R2 servers, we were greeted with the following:


The Automatic Activation shows 2 days before its next try.

The VHD's download page indicates that it is good for 30 days and then it should be discarded after that time period. There is also mention that the VHD should not be activated. So, what will happen after the Automatic Activation deadline and the 30 days beyond today will be interesting to see.

We ran the Microsoft KB930955: Moveuser.exe is incompatible with Windows Vista and is replaced by the new Win32_UserProfile WMI functionality in anticipation of installing the Vista Eval VM on our SBS 2K3 R2 (RipCurled) virtual domain.

No matter what we did, the Vista VHD refused to allow the update. No indications were given as to what the problem was. If we have time, more effort will be put into the investigation.

We were able to run the Connect Computer Wizard and begin the install onto the SBS domain with no issues. Because of the above, if we had local accounts to migrate, they would have been left behind (Though there is a fix for that).

The _sbs_netsetup_ portion after the first reboot would not log off and reboot the system. We had to manually log the SBS setup user off, then log on as domain admin and reboot the VM.

After the second reboot and the subsequent logon with an SBS domain user account, the Client Install wizard ran without incident. Outlook 2003 was there and functional with the domain user's Exchange connection.

For those without a TechNet subscription, this will provide a means of configuring, installing software, and all around messing around with Windows Vista.

It is definitely a step in the right direction for those who need to test their network infrastructure and applications with Windows Vista.

Thanks to Susan Bradley for pointing out the download: Vista in a VHD.

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists

D5 - Video of an interview of Steve Jobs & Bill Gates

If you have some time to burn and are interested in a little computer history, as well seeing Bill Gates and Steve Jobs on a stage together for the first time in ages, then check out the following:

D5All Things Digital: Joint Interview with Steve Jobs & Bill Gates by Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher.

There are seven parts to the interview plus the prologue.

The Prologue is initially quite funny as it is a parody on the Dating Game. And, it is pretty neat to see out of the three industry leaders introduced at the beginning, only Gates is standing today. We go on to see some bits of history in the relationship between Microsoft and Apple.

The Highlight Reel spotlights some dialogue where Jobs says some things that render Gates completely speechless. It was good for a laugh.

Check it out ... it is a little bit of history in the making for our industry as well as a good history lesson about our industry.

It is also really neat to get a glimpse of both Gates and Jobs' thoughts and personalities.

Thanks to Todd Bishop's Microsoft Blog: Steve Jobs, Bill Gates discuss their relationship for pointing this one out.

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists

SBS 2K3 - All Versions: Yet another issue with W2K3 Service Pack 2

It seems to be a fact on SBS that service packs break things. This fact has been around for a very long time.

It is one of the reasons we never apply service packs immediately, especially the OS ones, to our SBS boxes.

The SBS blog has pointed out another issue on SBS with Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 2: Unable to RDP/RWW into the SBS server after applying SP2.

The service pack breaks Terminal Services. The solution it seems, is to head over to the server console and reapply the service pack.

This can be especially painful for us SBSers, as we are generally RDPd into our SBS boxes for the updates. Sometimes, depending on the updates, we will need a fail safe scheduled reboot (previous blog post how-to) that would run an hour or so after starting the updates just in case the RDP connection is killed. Exchange and ISA updates are bad for that.

Susan Bradley has a current W2K3 SP2 install on SBS caveat page: Before You Install. And, there are LOTS of them!

As I see it, Service Packs are a throwback to a time when the Internet was in its infancy or even non-existent. We were required to either pay for the floppies, CD, or now DVD media, or after the coming of the Internet, download them from Microsoft's product page. Keep in mind we are talking about the SMB environment here. No SMS & MOM.

There was really no incremental updates until the advent of Windows Update. With Windows Update, we were able to patch and update our operating systems on an ongoing basis. We no longer had to wait for the service pack.

The same is true of our Microsoft Applications with the advent of the comprehensive update site for all Microsoft products: Microsoft Update.

A really huge portion of the current Service Pack 2 for Windows Server 2003 has already been delivered to us via WSUS/MSUpdate.

For us SBSers, the adoption of WSUS 2.0 was quite wide spread. Why else was WSUS 2.0 incorporated into the R2 release of SBS? Because it works, it facilitates an accurate picture of an organization's patch level status, and it gives the remote consultant full control over what patch is released and when.

Now, with the release of WSUS 3.0 and its ability to seamlessly be installed on SBS 2K3 SP1 and R2, we obtain the ability to manage Windows Vista patching as well. Here is a previous blog post on one particular WSUS 3.0 installation.

Given our current abilities to keep our patching levels current via WSUS, to test those incremental patches and publish our experiences with them, and to monitor our client's installations simply via the SBS R2 reports, we need to retire the Service Pack for the mainstream, but especially for SBSers.

Give us those incremental updates that were contained in the current Service Pack via WSUS. Give us the chance to test each component in our labs and on our own networks before having to chew on a chunky Service Pack that may, and does, break things on our client's SBS boxes.

Microsoft, our SBS boxes are as varied as any out there. Each client installation will be different. Hardware configurations are myriad, different critical corporate software installations on the SBS box are numerous, and no two SBS installations are identical.

We as Microsoft Small Business Specialists take great pains to try and configure servers based on one hardware platform to ease what can be a hardware support nightmare.

We also take great pains to make sure that our solutions meet our client's very specific needs.

And, our solutions need to be stable. It is tough to sell solutions based on SBS if we see a huge splattering of SBS pain on a Service Pack install. That, it seems, is what is happening now.

Think about the consultant or small I.T. support company that is not as experienced with SBS. Will the current debacle with W2K Service Pack 2 deter them from installing SBS based solutions? It sure may!

Also, keep in mind that the small business client, though not an I.T. Professional, may have at least a good grasp on the technologies used in their business, and know where to find information on products that a consultant may be recommending to them. The current Service Pack 2 issues on SBS may not show SBS in a good light at all.

Microsoft, having SBS pain expressed around Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 2 is definitely not a good way to sell a product.

All that being said, we still maintain that SBS 2K3 Premium R2 is the best server software product for our SMB clients. To date, SBS 2K3 is the best SBS version we have worked with. And, we plan on working with it as well as SBS Cougar into the future!

We will just continue to be very cautious around service packs! ;)

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists

Windows Vista - Network file copy to workstation performance issues

Just a quick note to let you know that there is a recognized performance issue in Windows Vista when copying files from a network source to the local workstation.

You may see a "Calculating Time Remaining" message indicating "0 minutes remaining" and get nowhere with the process.

If you are having issues with this, then there is a Knowledge Base article and a hotfix for you!

Microsoft KB931770: The copy process may stop responding when you try to copy files from a server on a network to a Windows Vista-based computer.

Give Product Support Services a call for the hotfix!

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists

TroubleShooting: Client lost Dell image disks? Request them back...

Dell actually has a request the backup disks page.

The disks will contain the factory-installed OS and device drivers.

From the Dell site:

• Requests are limited to one (1) set of backup discs per system purchased.
• The backup discs requested must match the operating system that was factory installed on the original order.

So, if you have clients with missing disks, here you go: Dell: Request Backup Disks.

You will be required to fill out a form. Not sure if there will be a nominal cost involved.

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists

Blog access outage...

We are still in the process of refining our Internet facing servers.

As a result, we experienced an outage on our blog access due to no access to our primary DNS servers.

We are making changes to our DNS topology to avoid that in the future.

Our apologies for any inconvenience.

We live and learn. :*)

Update: Changed "experiences" to "experienced".

Also, looking at the logs, the issue might have been internal here as there doesn't seem to be any real break in the blog visit times, or the problem had just started to show itself.

It bears further investigation. :D

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists

System Builder Tip: Vista Aero Performance Rating - ATI X1250 on AMD 690G Chipset

A while back, we went to the AMD/Microsoft TechTour which offered us a Tour Bundle at a discount over purchasing through distribution.

According to the coupon we received to redeem for the bundle, we were to get an AMD X2 4400+, Asus M2A-VM AM2 series motherboard, a copy of Windows Vista Ultimate NFR, and a one year subscription to McAfee's security product *cough*. ;0)

We decided to take a risk and purchase the bundle.

This is the first time in over five (5) years that we have purchased anything AMD!

Why? Because, we were burned so badly by a number of AMD based systems back then that we never turned back. We had to fight with the motherboards to work with any add-in cards like network or video for example. Or, we had to fight to get the drivers to work properly or the system to run stable at all. There were a number of times we were replacing components or motherboards to get things to play together nicely. Any so-called cost savings was obliterated by the time fighting with the systems.

So, that was that. Remember the three strike rule? :D

And here we are, with the processor, motherboard, some Kingston RAM, a couple of 320 GB Seagates setup in a RAID 1 array and having just finished installing Windows Vista Ultimate.

All in all, the install went smoothly.

The one glitch we ran into was getting Vista to recognize the on board ATI X1250 video subsystem. Vista refused to. After fighting with it for about half an hour, we extracted the driver ZIP file, and went into the Device Manager and forced the driver to update via the Update Drivers button on the Standard VGA driver.

After a reboot the Standard VGA was still there, though the display setting was reset to 640 x 480. So, tried one more reboot and it worked. We now had Vista recognizing the video as an ATI X1250.

By the way, we had a bit of a struggle trying to figure out where to find the video driver in the first place. The lingo used on Asus' site didn't have anything labelled video. It only had what turned out to be one massive "chipset" driver:


Um, Intel's "chipset" drivers tend to be something like 2-3 MB. So, the only logical conclusion with a 149 MB download, is that Asus packages both the chipset and video drivers together.

That is a pretty chunky download by the way.

Here is the current Catalyst driver size:

A whole whopping 40 MB.

So, take 3 MB for Intel's chipset drivers and 40 MB for ATI's Catalyst drivers, and that leaves 100 MB+ of what exactly? Not too sure on that.

The first run at the Windows System Assessment Tool failed. That was after the first reboot post ATI driver install.

The Windows System Assessment Tool ran fine after the second reboot.

Here is how the ATI X1250 did:



Desktop performance for Windows Aero scored a 2.5 and the 3D business and gaming graphics performance scored a 2.8.

So, how does the on board ATI X1250 stack up to Intel's on board GMA 3000 series video chipset?

Not really that well I am afraid.

In our System Builder Tip: Vista Aero Performance Rating - Intel GMA 3000 on DQ965GF and ATI FireMV 2200 PCI-E,

the on board GMA 3000 series graphics ran a 3.9 score for Vista Aero and a 3.7 score for 3D Graphics.

Intel's 945GM chipset in a Toshiba Portégé M500 had a Desktop performance for Windows Aero score of 2.0 while the 3D business and gaming graphics performance scored 2.8.

For most users that use the Internet, e-mail, and perhaps Microsoft Office this performance level would be okay.

I think that the occasional gamer may be a bit disappointed in the ATI X1250 performance and go out and pick up at least an ATI X1600 or above to get better performance.

Please keep in mind that since this is our first foray into AMD in so many years, we are not exactly up on what's the fastest and newest stuff from them and those that manufacture their system parts. So, hopefully we won't need any flame retardant underwear! ;)

This particular box is going to be our test desktop mule for our SBS Cougar beta testing. So, it is going to get a lot of use, as well as tear downs. Hopefully it is up to the task.

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists