How do I identify hardware?

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His Royal Majesty King V
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How do I identify hardware?

Post by His Royal Majesty King V »

All,

Well, admittedly, this P4 system I got from a friend is throwing me a curve or three.....

There's definitely hardware that I have to get drivers for, as Win98 doesn't know them.

Firstly, a combination ieee1394/USB card. Then, the onboard 10/100 ethernet, the onboard sound, and finally, I suppose, the chipset itself.

Ok, that's probably in reverse.

Best I've been able to find is that the chipset is Intel 845, and that the sound is probably "Soundmax II AC97"

However, is there any sort of software that can identify the hardware for me? Pretty much tell me who makes everything that's on the computer? That should eliminate much of the hunting and guessing.

Secondly, how is the Soundmax II AC97 sound? Any good, or am I better off disabling it and going with my tried-and-true, yet ancient Ensoniq AudioPCI soundcard (until such time as I get money for something better)?

I figure the chipset drivers I can probably just download from Intel.
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monaro327
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Post by monaro327 »

if it's ac97 it's just plan old software sound. plus cpuz and sandra might be able to help you with identifying your hardware.
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His Royal Majesty King V
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Post by His Royal Majesty King V »

cool, thanks for the info . . I'll probably download the latest versions of those two.

Does integrated ethernet also primarily use the CPU? If so, I might put in one of the 3Com 905-series PCI ethernet cards instead . . if that's the sort of thing that uses far less CPU resources.

Of course, I should probably find out WHAT I have before I do that.
FIC PA-2103 E-O036, K6-2+ 450 2.0V @ 500 1.9V
FIC PA-2013 E-O036, K6-III 450 2.2V @ 500
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