Ahhh-motherfraXinG-YEAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

McNevin · Post by **McNevin** » Sun Jun 19, 2005 6:12 pm

Ordered me up some bling bling platinum!

http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDe ... e=80097-55

R3C · Post by **R3C** » Sun Jun 19, 2005 7:50 pm

That's the stuff Admiral! Excellent! I still haven't run the single card benches yet. (been gone all day) I think you'll be quite happy with that purchase. People will tell you that having 2GB doesn't matter, but it does make a HUGE difference.

McNevin · Post by **McNevin** » Sun Jun 19, 2005 9:38 pm

I'd never be happy with myself if i didnt buy it!

I'll fire some benchmarks up here soon, im just so addicted to Battlefield 2

R3C · Post by **R3C** » Sun Jun 19, 2005 10:08 pm

Well, I started running the benchmark for you, but even if you select "Single GPU" mode, it detects the 3DMark05 EXE file, and uses the 3DMark05 profile. I can disable SLI, but it's a few extra steps and a couple of reboots, so I'll probably end up doing it tomorrow.

I've determined that my problems stem from heat. I increased my voltage a bit, loosened up the RAM timings a touch, and I still get the crashes and reboots during any stressful 3D app/game. It's totally Prime-stable, I can run CPU benches until the cows come home and leave again, but as soon as the GPUs kick in, I get a crash/reboot 10-15 minutes in. My proc idles at 103-104, which is totally acceptable. I should have my Arctic coolers for the GPUs on Tuesday. They exhaust heat out the back through the adjacent card slots, so that should solve my problem. Seth is using one on his X800 Pro, and his case dropped 10-15 degrees. If all this fails, I suppose it's time to get a case with a nice 120mm exhaust fan in the back.

R3C · Post by **R3C** » Mon Jun 20, 2005 11:37 am

UGH!!! I can't believe this crap. If I put these Arctic vid-card coolers on, I lose one of my two PCI slots! That means that I have to ditch my cool 108Mbps wireless card, and get a 54Mbps USB wireless adapter. Bleh. That isn't THAT bad, but it's still annoying. I'm also getting a Creamware Scope card (audio board with 6 DSPs etc.) This will take the place of the Audigy 2, but it's a huge card, so I'm hoping it won't block the intake air. I got the roundy-coppery-Zalman to replace the Hyper 6 cooler on the CPU. My idle temps have been perfect, but as soon as something starts utilizing the CPU, the temp shoot straight up to 135 or so. If I feel the heatsink, it's barely even warm, so I think there is an issue with the way it sits on the proc or something. Stupid. Wish I could take it back, but I don't know if they'll take back a gooed-up cooler. I know the Zalmans work correctly because I had one before. (Same one, only it was half aluminum, half copper.) It dropped my CPU temp by 12 degrees, and that was without AS5. There is now officially nothing left of my old PC except one HDD, and my burner.

I'm tired of spending money on cooling. I want to move onto the audio side of it, and get my Scope card. Damnit!

R3C · Post by **R3C** » Tue Jun 21, 2005 9:08 am

ACK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So, I put an Arctic cooler on one of my cards last night to see what kind of temperature drop I could get. Well, no matter where I put it, the fan rubbed on the back of the card next to it. (Poor board layout from Abit.) SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSsooooooooooooooooooooooooOoOo, I have to pick up an ASUS A8N-SLI today. (actually in a couple of hours) Abit seems to be the only company that only separates the PCI-X16 slots by 1 X1 slot. The rest all put two X1 slots in between the X16 slots. So, that will solve my problem.

I'm getting really tired of buying things for my computer now. I've gone WWWWAAAAYYYY over budget. I suppose it will be worth it when I'm done, but still. I've got a huge box full of coolers and fans that didn't quite meet my standards.

I'm encouraged by the fact that the benchmarks aren't looking totally impressive on the new 7xxx series. My 2 GTs outperform the top-end card. Also, there are no new cool features either. Still just an SM3.0 card. They should have called them the 6900s or 6950s or something.

McNevin · Post by **McNevin** » Tue Jun 21, 2005 11:15 am

I hear that! I've bought 2 procs, and 2 sets of ram. Turns out directron.com sucks, well i knew that already. They missquoted the panaflo specs. Turns out its only 24cfm. So now I need another panaflo, but heatsinkfactory is out of stock.

Post by **enderzero** » Tue Jun 21, 2005 11:39 am

They've lost their frickin minds...

R3C · Post by **R3C** » Tue Jun 21, 2005 11:46 am

Admiral, you may already know this, but there are two types of Panaflow. One has the tach-line, then other doesn't. That may be why your fan didn't have a 3-line cable. If you order another, make sure it's one with a tach. If it still comes with a 2-line cable, let me know, and Seth can make you a tripplor....

R3C · Post by **R3C** » Tue Jun 21, 2005 11:48 am

Oh, and yes, we have lost our minds, but it's been fun. Today marks the day when my computer will be fully operational. Now, if you'd like to name another target, a military target, name the system.

R3C · Post by **R3C** » Tue Jun 21, 2005 2:19 pm

Got me board. ASUS A8N-SLI. I almost got the deluxe version until I realized the only difference was a second ethernet controller and SATA-RAID controller. Bleh. Who needs those? Well, the RAID controller could be nice, but I'm not buying any more drives for a while, so it wouldn't do much good.

McNevin · Post by **McNevin** » Tue Jun 21, 2005 4:39 pm

I agree I have lost my mind, but damn is it fun!

As far as the MSIs are concerned the Ultra has extra USB, SATA2 instead of Regular Sata, and onboard 1394. The SLI ultra has an SB live! 5.1 instead of realtek. I would recomend it, if not for the stupid power issues it has.

I'm rebuying all my panaflos, and I'll be sure to get the ones with da tachage! Thx!

R3C · Post by **R3C** » Tue Jun 21, 2005 10:30 pm

Finally got it all set up. I was getting some similar reboots earlier, but after some tweaking and testing, I've got it running pretty well. I ran Prime in all three modes plus my own custom mode, for 45 minutes each. Things seem good. Idle temp for the CPU is 99F and load temps don't usually go over 120F. (It usually stays around 117 though.) I'm pretty happy with it. The Arctic cooler actually runs a little hotter than stock (by about 3 degrees,) but it gets rid of case heat, so I don't mind. It's still nowhere near the ouch threshold. I'm doing some game tests right now. I played HL2 for a while without any problems. I played Far Cry, Q3A, UT2004, with no problems. Next is Doom 3, which is the one that usually causes a spot of trouble. This new board is perfect. Everything is right where it should be, it's stable, has plenty of options, etc. The Abit board is really cool, but there are just a few things I don't like about it. In fact, I'd actually use it for a non-SLI system. When I'm totally sure everything is working right, I'll post some benches.

R3C · Post by **R3C** » Tue Jun 21, 2005 11:12 pm

Passed my first Doom 3 test. I didn't play for a long time, but it didn't reboot. I'll give it a longer test tomorrow, but things are looking good. Woooo!!!

Fast!

McNevin · Post by **McNevin** » Wed Jun 22, 2005 4:12 pm

First off, 99F!... You bastard! Thats great news though, so after you slap the second arctic cooler on, you should be done, finally.

So this morning I woke up to a dead PC. I did some fiddling, and finally I was able to get into the BIOS. Wow what a sight, the date and time was "jumping around" it was going from like 2005, to 2010, 2070, 1985, you get the idea. It wouldn't go into windows either. I suspected power, I went and got a new power supply (Now me and J3rk are PS buddies!) and it still didn't work. Long story short, it was the battery! Well that and the assumption that the old power supply killed the battery.

"What you do to da battery!" I'm drinking in the irony of it all!

R3C · Post by **R3C** » Wed Jun 22, 2005 6:23 pm

The CPU is now idling at 90F!!!!! The second Arctic cooler exhausts enough air to make that happen. Crazy eh? One of the Arctics runs 5 degrees cooler than the other though, so I may have to reseat the hot one. (Still not hot, but enough of a discrepancy to warrant taking it back off.) I can't believe it's running so cool. May have to up the voltage and try for 2600 or something.

WWWWWWWWWEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!

McNevin · Post by **McNevin** » Sun Jul 03, 2005 6:11 pm

Well it wasn't the power supply, im on battery #3! I hope i still have time to RMA this bastage back to MSI.

While im waiting for the jerkotron board to arrive, i think ill try this.

There's a new beta bios listed on the overclockers section of the MSI forums for testing. Apparently this addresses two different bugs:

1. nVRAID shutdown hang.

2. 219MHz POST problems.

The original poster is asking for constructive feedback on how this performs to report back to MSI.

If you feel adventuresome, check out:

http://forum.msi.com.tw/index.php?topic=82493.0

If it helps in any way, please provide constructive feedback to the forum.

They didnt mention frying batteries, and no video for 5 minutes after locking up, even when underclocked. Think i have a defective board.

R3C · Post by **R3C** » Sun Jul 03, 2005 8:10 pm

I'll say. Stupid board. I can't believe what I've been hearing. They've broken new ground in teh suX! I very nearly got that board too in the beginning.

McNevin · Post by **McNevin** » Mon Jul 11, 2005 11:56 am

The egg is in the basket... over.

R3C · Post by **R3C** » Mon Jul 11, 2005 11:59 am

Roger that... over...

R3C · Post by **R3C** » Mon Jul 11, 2005 12:00 pm

Did everything make it in one piece?

McNevin · Post by **McNevin** » Mon Jul 11, 2005 12:01 pm

Kinda... the heat pipe is a little bent, but it should still work...

R3C · Post by **R3C** » Mon Jul 11, 2005 1:06 pm

The heatpipe was already sort of bent. It came like that. It does work fine. Let me know how the board works for you.

McNevin · Post by **McNevin** » Tue Jul 12, 2005 1:24 pm

FUQ... over.

That is all.

R3C · Post by **R3C** » Tue Jul 12, 2005 1:59 pm

Doesn't sound good. Is this a pre-I-talked-to-you, or a post-I-talked-to-you FUQ?

McNevin · Post by **McNevin** » Tue Jul 12, 2005 2:52 pm

Post. Just a general expression of my feelings over the entire process of building this PC.

R3C · Post by **R3C** » Tue Jul 12, 2005 3:32 pm

Yes, this has been my most troubling PC since the 386 era. However, after all the work, screaming, near-off-deck-tossing, and parts buying, I have the coolest PC I've ever owned, (all eras and epochs taken into consideration.) I love this PC. I can't believe how stable it is. I've had PCs that I've overclocked and declared "stable" but there was always some little, tiny problem that would pop up here or there. This current PC is PERFECT. Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!

McNevin · Post by **McNevin** » Fri Jul 15, 2005 9:33 pm

"Quiet Err... I'm transmitting rage!"

My video card did not show up today. I'm pissed!

spidermonkey · Post by **spidermonkey** » Sat Jul 16, 2005 12:48 am

Panawave!!!!

McNevin · Post by **McNevin** » Sat Jul 16, 2005 11:13 am

teh Forum

teh Forum

Ahhh-motherfraXinG-YEAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ok... so the spending continues!