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[suaveric]

Not for $11, just use toothpaste + vaseline when you try to reseat it.

Good and bad are within 4C of each other and idling at 85C it's not going to amtter much what you use.

i'm praying that i'll only have to clean and reseat this thing once, so i'm not going to be using toothpaste. i take it that $11 is expensive for the paste, but I don't want to wait another 3-5 days for new egg to ship me something cheaper. so as long as the paste from best buy will fly, i guess i'll go with that.

now how do i go about cleaning off the old paste? someone said use alcohol, but i'm a little worried about using liquids around all the important bits like that.

 

[chespace]

i'm praying that i'll only have to clean and reseat this thing once, so i'm not going to be using toothpaste. i take it that $11 is expensive for the paste, but I don't want to wait another 3-5 days for new egg to ship me something cheaper. so as long as the paste from best buy will fly, i guess i'll go with that.

now how do i go about cleaning off the old paste? someone said use alcohol, but i'm a little worried about using liquids around all the important bits like that.

I dipped q-tips into 99% rubbing alcohol and then wiped it afterwards with kleenex. It worked out okay for me. My 4 cores are showing 29, 29, 35, 32 on idle.

Remember, I'm the guy who installed the Arctic Cooler 7 on my Q9550 backwards. :lol

 

[lachesis]

I dipped q-tips into 99% rubbing alcohol and then wiped it afterwards with kleenex. It worked out okay for me. My 4 cores are showing 29, 29, 35, 32 on idle.

Remember, I'm the guy who installed the Arctic Cooler 7 on my Q9550 backwards. :lol

Looks like you'll be remembered for many other things, such as plugging 8pin to your 4870x2 too!

Well, at least you can view your misfortune as a learning experience. Now you practically know your computer inside-out, and you now have first hand experience on isolating the problematic component in your computer. If your new card still does the same thing, I say e-bay the thing and get a different card all together, such as 260 or 280. (join the dark side...)

 

[lachesis]

i'm praying that i'll only have to clean and reseat this thing once, so i'm not going to be using toothpaste. i take it that $11 is expensive for the paste, but I don't want to wait another 3-5 days for new egg to ship me something cheaper. so as long as the paste from best buy will fly, i guess i'll go with that.

now how do i go about cleaning off the old paste? someone said use alcohol, but i'm a little worried about using liquids around all the important bits like that.

99% alcohol, dip a clean q-tip, swap, and clean with lint-free cloth. Since if there is any paste if you didn't take off the plastic - it will be most likely on your HSF, rather than CPU. It's not that hard - when you dip your q-tip, just do slightly, and dry out some of the excess before you start cleaning.

 

[SRG01]

Is thermal paste really that big of a deal I have only put it on one of my computers and never had any problems.

Thermal paste is absolutely necessary as it improves the thermal contact between the heat spreader on the CPU and the heat sink above. No surface is perfectly planar, so applying thermal paste can improve cooling efficiencies significantly.

 

[captive]

oh. my. god.
What the hell did I buy?
The Antec 1200 isnt a tower its a friggin server case. The pictures on newegg need some other items in them for some scale.
Its ridiculous

Ok after actually getting it out of the box maybe i was a little hyperbolic. Its still bigger than my last antec case. The fan on top is huge though, didnt not look that big in the pictures.

Doesn't newegg give you thet product dimensions?

I didnt check them.

 

[zoku88]

Doesn't newegg give you thet product dimensions?

 

[chespace]

So searching around I found that others have had the same issue and nobody has found a solution yet. Well, one person found a solution by upgrading his PSU.

http://forums.amd.com/game/messageview.cfm?catid=260&threadid=101036

http://forums.sapphiretech.com/showthread.php?t=20749

Now I wonder if it really is just a PSU issue...

 

[Waikis]

So searching around I found that others have had the same issue and nobody has found a solution yet. Well, one person found a solution by upgrading his PSU.

http://forums.amd.com/game/messageview.cfm?catid=260&threadid=101036

http://forums.sapphiretech.com/showthread.php?t=20749

Now I wonder if it really is just a PSU issue...

Eh.. let me repeat this question again, have you tried the powerplay fix?

 

[chespace]

Eh.. let me repeat this question again, have you tried the powerplay fix?

Yes, if by Powerplay fix you mean I have Rivatuner set the clock speed of both GPUs to 750MHz and 900MHz.

From what I can tell, most of the folks who have benefited from this fix were getting crashes AFTER they got into the game and were playing for 5 minutes or for hours.

I can't even GET INTO a game with Catalyst A.I. turned on. Doesn't sound like a GPU clock speed rapid switching crash to me.

As soon as the 2nd GPU kicks in, I'm fucked.

 

[Big Takeover]

So searching around I found that others have had the same issue and nobody has found a solution yet. Well, one person found a solution by upgrading his PSU.

http://forums.amd.com/game/messageview.cfm?catid=260&threadid=101036

http://forums.sapphiretech.com/showthread.php?t=20749

Now I wonder if it really is just a PSU issue...

It's obviously possible, but nothing about the specs worry me. It's got a single 12v rail, so if you are suspicious of the card not getting enough juice, unplug all the non-essentials (2nd hard drive, dvd drive, a couple of case fans, pull the wifi card and run Steam in offline mode).

 

[Hazaro]

oh. my. god.
What the hell did I buy?
The Antec 1200 isnt a tower its a friggin server case. The pictures on newegg need some other items in them for some scale.
Its ridiculous

Ok after actually getting it out of the box maybe i was a little hyperbolic. Its still bigger than my last antec case. The fan on top is huge though, didnt not look that big in the pictures.


I didnt check them.

What did you expect? 12 mini bays? :lol

 

[Waikis]

Yes, if by Powerplay fix you mean I have Rivatuner set the clock speed of both GPUs to 750MHz and 900MHz.

From what I can tell, most of the folks who have benefited from this fix were getting crashes AFTER they got into the game and were playing for 5 minutes or for hours.

I can't even GET INTO a game with Catalyst A.I. turned on. Doesn't sound like a GPU clock speed rapid switching crash to me.

As soon as the 2nd GPU kicks in, I'm fucked.

I had a similar problem with you when i went from a single 4870 to 2x4870. Crysis would always crash when i go from windows to 3d mode : s .

Can Rivatuner actually force the clock? I just tried and it doesnt seem to force the clock to the desired value.

Test it with the hardware monitoring function to see the clock in windows.

 

[suaveric]

OK, so i've cleaned the CPU of its paste and I think I'm ready to apply the new stuff and try again.

The alcohol didn't quite get everything, there is some stubborn residue that just doesn't want to come off. I took a picture for you guys, is this clean enough?

for shits and giggles, here's the before shot. most of the paste stayed with the heatsink and not the CPU when i removed it. (sorry about the blur)

 

[SapientWolf]

The paste didn't even cover the cpu. I would get some arctic silver, some cleaner and polish and redo the whole thing. You should only have to buy the stuff once anyways. Make sure to get a nice thin, even coat. A credit card can help you spread it out.

 

[suaveric]

so you're saying that after looking at my top photo, i don't have the cpu clean enough? i got all of the solid junk off the cpu, all that's left is that smudge that just won't seem to go away.

i did buy that silver paste and it came with a card to help apply it, so i should be good there. as for the circle of the old paste, it doesn't cover the whole cpu but it did pretty much cover the whole heatsink. the heat sink is a slightly smaller and circle shaped

 

[SapientWolf]

so you're saying that after looking at my top photo, i don't have the cpu clean enough? i got all of the solid junk off the cpu, all that's left is that smudge that just won't seem to go away.

i did buy that silver paste and it came with a card to help apply it, so i should be good there. as for the circle of the old paste, it doesn't cover the whole cpu but it did pretty much cover the whole heatsink. the heat sink is a slightly smaller and circle shaped

No, I don't think you have to worry about cleaning the CPU now. I just assumed that the thermal compound was supposed to cover the entire surface of the CPU. If it wasn't and your CPU was still cooking itself then I would suspect that something is wrong with the heatsink.

 

[suaveric]

well i went ahead and did it. right now my cpu is hold steady at 22.5 C. thanks gaf

 

[fatigues_gasolini]

Quick question. Would I be ok having a molex to 6-pin adapter connected to a graphics card? Are there any chances of problems with this?

 

[captive]

Another question about CPU cooling etc. I got the arctic freezer 7, it says:

We ship our coolers with our latest ARCTIC MX-2 thermal compound pre-applied. MX-2 is a high thermal conductivity and low thermal resistance compound that optimizes thermal dissipation. It is ideally suited for use in CPU and GPU cooling where thermal conductivity is a major factor.

Should i remove this and apply my own, or is this satisfactory?

 

[mambadragon]

Another question about CPU cooling etc. I got the arctic freezer 7, it says:

Should i remove this and apply my own, or is this satisfactory?

Leave it, a lot of what I've read have said the AC stuff is better than Arctic Silver 5 now.

 

[Melhisedek]

Hello there folks,
I'm looking to upgrade my system with a new CPU, mobo, RAM and perhaps a HD but that is optional and down the road.

Have
Opty 165 @ 2.6
2 GiG RAM
8800GT 512 MB

Looking into 8400 or perhaps 8500 (whichever overclocks better), decent mobo and 4Gig RAM.

There is no real budget limit but I don't want to pay more than I really need. On my current rig the most expensive thing was RAM and afterwards I tried a cheap version from my friend and run it at divider with almost no loss in performance. And his RAM cost about 1/3 of mine [blush]

So here it goes...
Rig will be a gaming rig only. No SLI or CF not now, not down the road. I have an old Audigy sound card, it is really old like 5-6 years I think. No idea which one it is (not Audigy 2 thats for sure), but worst case scenario I don't need some great onboard sound.

So solid mobo and RAM for me please

Here are the options for mobos: (local komplett)
http://www.komplett.se/k/kl.aspx?bn=10492

No idea what RAM I should go for but if running on a divider is not a big performance kill for games that I don't need top stuff

Thank you for your time!

 

[Manp]

Another question about CPU cooling etc. I got the arctic freezer 7, it says:

Should i remove this and apply my own, or is this satisfactory?

MX-2 is really high quality stuff. leave it.

 

[captive]

Leave it, a lot of what I've read have said the AC stuff is better than Arctic Silver 5 now.

MX-2 is really high quality stuff. leave it.

Excellent thanks guys, thats what I wanted to hear. I didnt want to waste any time running to the store to get some paste, want to start building when I get home.

 

[JSnake]

Quick question. Would I be ok having a molex to 6-pin adapter connected to a graphics card? Are there any chances of problems with this?

Should work fine. No reason for it not to unless your PSU sucks.

 

[larvi]

Hello there folks,
I'm looking to upgrade my system with a new CPU, mobo, RAM and perhaps a HD but that is optional and down the road.

Have
Opty 165 @ 2.6
2 GiG RAM
8800GT 512 MB

Looking into 8400 or perhaps 8500 (whichever overclocks better), decent mobo and 4Gig RAM.

There is no real budget limit but I don't want to pay more than I really need. On my current rig the most expensive thing was RAM and afterwards I tried a cheap version from my friend and run it at divider with almost no loss in performance. And his RAM cost about 1/3 of mine [blush]

So here it goes...
Rig will be a gaming rig only. No SLI or CF not now, not down the road. I have an old Audigy sound card, it is really old like 5-6 years I think. No idea which one it is (not Audigy 2 thats for sure), but worst case scenario I don't need some great onboard sound.

So solid mobo and RAM for me please

Here are the options for mobos: (local komplett)
http://www.komplett.se/k/kl.aspx?bn=10492

No idea what RAM I should go for but if running on a divider is not a big performance kill for games that I don't need top stuff

Thank you for your time!

I would recommend the Gigabyte GA-EP45-DS3L model (GA-EP45-DS3R if you need onboard raid). Or if you want to save a bit go with the Gigabyte GA-EP35-DS3L which would also meet your requirements and is a solid board. I also agree that it's not worth spending a fortune on memory unless you plan on going to extremes with overclocking.

 

[chespace]

Tried installing older CCC drivers -- 8.8 Vista 64 bit version didn't work. It installed okay, and then upon reboot, it says it didn't recognize the drivers. :lol

So I uninstalled, driversweeper and then installed the drivers that came on the 4870x2 disc... I think they're 8.6 maybe.

Drivers worked, but still got a BSoD when I turn on Catalyst AI.

My 2nd 4870x2 arrives today so I'll try that later tonight.

 

[JSnake]

I hope it works, Che. You've been a trooper.

 

[Zzoram]

Tried installing older CCC drivers -- 8.8 Vista 64 bit version didn't work. It installed okay, and then upon reboot, it says it didn't recognize the drivers. :lol

So I uninstalled, driversweeper and then installed the drivers that came on the 4870x2 disc... I think they're 8.6 maybe.

Drivers worked, but still got a BSoD when I turn on Catalyst AI.

My 2nd 4870x2 arrives today so I'll try that later tonight.

I'd personally skip the on-disc 8.6, those are modified to work with the 4800s but were designed for the 3800s.

Just go straight to 8.9 or 8.10

 

[Hazaro]

well i went ahead and did it. right now my cpu is hold steady at 22.5 C. thanks gaf

22.5C?

I doubt that is correct.

Download the most recent Coretemp or RealTemp and see what it says.

I'm sure it's fine but I doubt your Quad is idling at 23C

 

[Kadey]

Tried installing older CCC drivers -- 8.8 Vista 64 bit version didn't work. It installed okay, and then upon reboot, it says it didn't recognize the drivers. :lol

So I uninstalled, driversweeper and then installed the drivers that came on the 4870x2 disc... I think they're 8.6 maybe.

Drivers worked, but still got a BSoD when I turn on Catalyst AI.

My 2nd 4870x2 arrives today so I'll try that later tonight.

8.8 is really the start of the official 4800 support, though bad since it was a disaster, 8.9 and up is where it's at.

Don't worry though. Many people have problems with ATI drivers. Nothing new. I myself just updated to 8.10 a couple of days ago and I had to install/reinstall several times to finally get it to work. Some people are more lucky than others.

 

[captive]

Woohoo. Got the rest of the shipment today. Although a little disappointed in newegg the box was pretty much completely open when i got it. Anyone could have easily reached in and grabbed the ram or CPU, whatever. Never had this happen with anything else Ive ever ordered from them.

Never the less everything was there, and luckily my front porch stayed dry through the downpour we had.
Starting the build process here in a few minutes though.

 

[chespace]

8.8 is really the start of the official 4800 support, though bad since it was a disaster, 8.9 and up is where it's at.

Don't worry though. Many people have problems with ATI drivers. Nothing new. I myself just updated to 8.10 a couple of days ago and I had to install/reinstall several times to finally get it to work. Some people are more lucky than others.

Thanks for the info about ATI drivers Kadey and Zzoram.

My wife confirmed that the graphics card arrived today so I'm going home now and have a long night of testing and hair pulling ahead of me. :lol

If it turns out the new GPU does the same thing, then I'm going to return the old one just for the hell of it and start looking into whether it's my PSU.

Still, with one of my 4970 cores gimped, I'm playing Crysis and the game is pretty much amazing. You feel so bad ass it's not even funny.

 

[Big Takeover]

Thanks for the info about ATI drivers Kadey and Zzoram.

My wife confirmed that the graphics card arrived today so I'm going home now and have a long night of testing and hair pulling ahead of me. :lol

If it turns out the new GPU does the same thing, then I'm going to return the old one just for the hell of it and start looking into whether it's my PSU.

Still, with one of my 4970 cores gimped, I'm playing Crysis and the game is pretty much amazing. You feel so bad ass it's not even funny.

I've got high hopes for this new card.

 

[Waikis]

8.10 official is out.

 

[Hazaro]

Thanks for the info about ATI drivers Kadey and Zzoram.

My wife confirmed that the graphics card arrived today so I'm going home now and have a long night of testing and hair pulling ahead of me. :lol

If it turns out the new GPU does the same thing, then I'm going to return the old one just for the hell of it and start looking into whether it's my PSU.

Still, with one of my 4970 cores gimped, I'm playing Crysis and the game is pretty much amazing. You feel so bad ass it's not even funny.

Crossfire does crap for Warhead, not sure about Crysis.

http://enthusiast.hardocp.com/article.html?art=MTU2NCw0LCxoZW50aHVzaWFzdA==

 

[godhandiscen]

8.10 official is out.

I don't know if this will be any different from the final ones that Bee linked to a couple pages ago, but I will still install them. I had a small flicker with those, an error so subtle that apparently the video driver recovered in time for me to not even notice, but I still got the error message indicator at the bottom. Also, I doubt it was due to me OC'ing my card since I was in the regular desktop. I have never had an ATI driver error, this was my first error ever, and it made me panic.

 

[Waikis]

I don't know if this will be any different from the final ones that Bee linked to a couple pages ago, but I will still install them. I had a small flicker with those, an error so subtle that apparently the video driver recovered in time for me to not even notice, but I still got the error message indicator at the bottom. Also, I doubt it was due to me OC'ing my card since I was in the regular desktop. I have never had an ATI driver error, this was my first error ever, and it made me panic.

Yeah ,if you have installed the RC2 final then this wouldnt make any difference.

Would you be interested in leaked 8.11 instead? : p

vistax86/64
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=T9IM88BP

xp x86/64

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=L80CVRGH

 

[godhandiscen]

Yeah ,if you have installed the RC2 final then this wouldnt make any difference.

Would you be interested in leaked 8.11 instead? : p

vistax86/64
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=T9IM88BP

xp x86/64

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=L80CVRGH

DANG!


Any word on what 8.11 does that is new? The 4870x2 is so darn powerful and crushes so many max settings, that sometimes I wonder if the driver upgrade is worth it. I installed 8.10 for the fan control which is awesome and allows me to have awesome temps below 40 *C at my OC settings. I do not care about noise since I use a huge pair of surround sound headphones. They cancel the ambient noise so effectively that my brother has to send me an online message if he wants me to open the door of my room. :lol

 

[Zzoram]

Crysis and Crysis Warhead are nVidia partner games, so it's obvious that ATI's Crossfire technology won't work as well as SLI technology. The thing to remember is that Crysis isn't the only game out there, and in just about every other game, the HD4870x2 is incredible.

 

[godhandiscen]

Crysis and Crysis Warhead are nVidia partner games, so it's obvious that ATI's Crossfire technology won't work as well as SLI technology. The thing to remember is that Crysis isn't the only game out there, and in just about every other game, the HD4870x2 is incredible.

It is also wise to know that there is no game for which you need a 4870x2. Crysis could have been that game, but the 4870x2 fails at it, and if your objective is over 80fps in every other game, then so be it, but I doubt anybody will notice the difference from the 60fps that the 4870 1GB offers. I know I don't, but that is my problem, I have never owned such a badass card before. I wish I had save myself a couple hundreds and gone for the 4870 1GB instead. My brother got one just recently and the difference between his performance and mine is unnoticeable at least to me.

edit: Have to point out that my brother runs a lower res monitor and just one monitor when playing sup com, but still, I wish I had saved myself the money this time.

 

[Waikis]

DANG!


Any word on what 8.11 does that is new? The 4870x2 is so darn powerful and crushes so many max settings, that sometimes I wonder if the driver upgrade is worth it. I installed 8.10 for the fan control which is awesome and allows me to have awesome temps below 40 *C at my OC settings. I do not care about noise since I use a huge pair of surround sound headphones. They cancel the ambient noise so effectively that my brother has to send me an online message if he wants me to open the door of my room. :lol

Only minor changes in 8.11rc1 unfortunately.

quoting rflair from guru3d:
"Only difference I see from 8.10 is an updated OpenGL driver, newer CCC.

Includes support for AGP cards.

Driver Packaging Version 8.542-080930a-070249E-ATI
2D Driver Version 7.01.01.830
Direct3D Version 7.14.10.0618
OpenGL Version 6.14.10.8087
Catalyst® Control Center Version 2008.0930.2229.38458

Enjoy.
"

 

[Zzoram]

It is also wise to know that there is no game for which you need a 4870x2. Crysis could have been that game, but the 4870x2 fails at it, and if your objective is over 80fps in every other game, then so be it, but I doubt anybody will notice the difference from the 60fps that the 4870 1GB offers. I know I don't, but that is my problem, I have never owned such a badass card before. I wish I had save myself a couple hundreds and gone for the 4870 1GB instead. My brother got one just recently and the difference between his performance and mine is unnoticeable at least to me.

edit: Have to point out that my brother runs a lower res monitor and just one monitor when playing sup com, but still, I wish I had saved myself the money this time.

I'm undecided right now about if my HD4870 512mb was the right choice, or if I should've sprung for the HD4870x2. Crysis Warhead performs pretty well, The Witcher runs great, but I'm reserving my judgement until I see how Farcry 2 and Fallout 3 run. If those run great, I'm happy. If they are less than ideal, then I'll regret not buying the HD4870x2.

 

[godhandiscen]

Only minor changes in 8.11rc1 unfortunately.

quoting rflair from guru3d:
"Only difference I see from 8.10 is an updated OpenGL driver, newer CCC.

Includes support for AGP cards.

Driver Packaging Version 8.542-080930a-070249E-ATI
2D Driver Version 7.01.01.830
Direct3D Version 7.14.10.0618
OpenGL Version 6.14.10.8087
Catalyst® Control Center Version 2008.0930.2229.38458

Enjoy.
"

I was just checking the 8.10 release notes, and it seems there were no improvements with respect to 8.10. I felt Crysis a tad bit faster, so it must have been me OC'ing the card after all.

 

[chespace]

I'm undecided right now about if my HD4870 512mb was the right choice, or if I should've sprung for the HD4870x2. Crysis Warhead performs pretty well, The Witcher runs great, but I'm reserving my judgement until I see how Farcry 2 and Fallout 3 run. If those run great, I'm happy. If they are less than ideal, then I'll regret not buying the HD4870x2.

I got a Powercolor 4870x2 to sell ya.

 

[chespace]

HOLY FUCKING CRAP

IT WORKS

MY 4870X2 WORKS

I guess I did burn out the 2nd core when I plugged the EATX12V into the first card. :lol

I only tested it with Stalker but it was liquid smooth with everything maxed out at the highest res.

Now to test it with Crysis. I'm running 8.10 final, btw.

YESSSSSSSS

 

[captive]

HOLY FUCKING CRAP

IT WORKS

MY 4870X2 WORKS

I guess I did burn out the 2nd core when I plugged the EATX12V into the first card. :lol

I only tested it with Stalker but it was liquid smooth with everything maxed out at the highest res.

Now to test it with Crysis. I'm running 8.10 final, btw.

YESSSSSSSS

congrats man. Im currently installing vista 64 ultimate on my box, ill be shocked if it works. I ALWAYS have something happen when building/rebuilding. So far so good though.

 

[Zzoram]

HOLY FUCKING CRAP

IT WORKS

MY 4870X2 WORKS

I guess I did burn out the 2nd core when I plugged the EATX12V into the first card. :lol

I only tested it with Stalker but it was liquid smooth with everything maxed out at the highest res.

Now to test it with Crysis. I'm running 8.10 final, btw.

YESSSSSSSS

The new X2 works? Return the old one I guess.

 

[chespace]

The new X2 works? Return the old one I guess.

Yup, Crysis works great too.

Moral of the story: don't plug shit into sockets that don't fit well.

 

[Zzoram]

Yup, Crysis works great too.

Moral of the story: don't plug shit into sockets that don't fit well.

So Crysis is actually smoother now?