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[Gully State]

So I've been tempted to pick up Dragon Age Origins lately and thought I'd download Character Creator just for the hell of it. Well 3 min into character creator, my computer without fail will crash and reboot (no BSOD). Anyone else have that problem? I can't imagine it's a hardware issue b/c I've never come across it playing crysis or any other game. Hopefully there's a fix otherwise I'm passing on DA..

 

[Red]

The way it looks bent seems like it won't work.

Yeah, but looking at reports of the issue online makes it appear as if Asus refuses RMAs on boards with the problem, claiming the socket problems are due to user error. Based on that I figured I had nothing to lose.

Almost done now, just cleaning up some wires. I could check it right now but I have a sinking feeling that all my work has been for nothing. Today has been pretty terrible really.

Well, I don't have it hooked up to a display (the GPU won't be here till tomorrow afternoon), but it looks alright currently. Starts up fine, is stable, disk drives work properly and everything seems to be functioning normally. Thank god. I won't know for sure if everything is good until tomorrow night, but for now I'm relieved.

One thing that I know will annoy me is the rattle caused by my noctua CPU fan blowing into my rear case fan. Not sure how I'm going to find a workaround for that.

edit:
Nevermind, moved around some wires and the rattle is gone. Must have had a fan wire resting on the heatsink or something.

 

[markot]

 

[Red]

That's what I was doing by the end :lol

Seems like it's running perfectly fine. Was really difficult building this today. I don't know if I was just tired or stressed out or what, but it was really draining. I smeared the thermal paste a bit more than I'd wanted when I stuck the heatsink on there, but I'm hoping it doesn't give me too much of a problem. Thanks for the suggestions everybody. Hopefully my worries were unfounded.

 

[TouchMyBox]

In the interest of following up, I found a beta version of the bios for the msi 770-c45 from some korean site (1.55 beta) and I was able to unlock the 4th core of my athlon II x3 435.

Just for reference, this is with three cores @ 3.4GHz

Now with the 4th core unlocked @ 3.4GHz:

I didn't think it would make THAT much of a difference, but alas it has. This is still with 0MB of L3 cache, I'm not sure which version of the BIOS can unlock the cache, but I don't think it's this one.

Compare this score of 11287 points to the core i5's 12733 points as seen here and you can see just how much bang for the buck I got, heaven forbid if i can unlock the l3 cache with the future bios update (i'm guessing i can if the 4th core is super stable even when overclocked) and if it ever do any over-voltaging with the $29 cooler i ordered.

 

[Red]

Huh, I got my 5870 and am trying to set up Windows. It's taking a ridiculously long time. I thought this was supposed to go by quick with an SSD?

Nevermind. The "expanding windows files" process took quite a while and the rest finished within like 40 seconds :lol

Noooo only 4 GB of memory are showing up and I have 6

One stick isn't even detected. Wonder if it's the RAM or the motherboard.

Also, anyone know how to get around this error?

I'm trying to install Windows 7 pro from inside the W7 RC (I only have a digital version of the full release, not a boot disc). I have a full TB of storage in this machine but it keeps giving me errors.

Nevermind again, it now works for some reason. Everything is alright now except for showing only 2/3 of my RAM. One stick is just completely undetected, it's reading the slot as empty. No good.

Hmmm.... cpu-z is detecting all 6 GB, but only 4 are usable in Windows. Is that normal? Doesn't seem like a hardware fault if it's being detected (cpu-z says I have a full 6 GB triple channel set up and lists the correct slots I'm using).

 

[TouchMyBox]

Huh, I got my 5870 and am trying to set up Windows. It's taking a ridiculously long time. I thought this was supposed to go by quick with an SSD?

Nevermind. The "expanding windows files" process took quite a while and the rest finished within like 40 seconds :lol

Noooo only 4 GB of memory are showing up and I have 6

One stick isn't even detected. Wonder if it's the RAM or the motherboard.

Also, anyone know how to get around this error?

I'm trying to install Windows 7 pro from inside the W7 RC (I only have a digital version of the full release, not a boot disc). I have a full TB of storage in this machine but it keeps giving me errors.

Nevermind again, it now works for some reason. Everything is alright now except for showing only 2/3 of my RAM. One stick is just completely undetected, it's reading the slot as empty. No good.

Hmmm.... cpu-z is detecting all 6 GB, but only 4 are usable in Windows. Is that normal? Doesn't seem like a hardware fault if it's being detected (cpu-z says I have a full 6 GB triple channel set up and lists the correct slots I'm using).

Heh, let me guess, 32 bit version? Get rid of that and get yourself windows 7 64bit. 32bit OSes can only use 4GB total ram (between your video and main ram) and a single process can only use a maximum of 3.5GB of ram.

 

[brain_stew]

Good news for those with an off the shelf PC, Powercolour are launching a 5750 model that requires no external power adapter. Cold very well become my "standard" recommendation for those with a Dell/HP machine, replacing the trusty old 4670.

http://www.powercolor.com/Global/NewsInfo.asp?id=929

 

[Red]

Heh, let me guess, 32 bit version? Get rid of that and get yourself windows 7 64bit. 32bit OSes can only use 4GB total ram (between your video and main ram) and a single process can only use a maximum of 3.5GB of ram.

64 bit. Really scratching my head over this one :/

 

[markot]

Did you do the 'upgrade' and move the files over? Was the RC a 64bit version?

 

[Red]

Did you do the 'upgrade' and move the files over? Was the RC a 64bit version?

I did a custom install of W7 pro inside of the RC, both the RC and my current W7 Pro set up were 64 bit. I'm seeing reports online of heatsink backplates warping Asus P6T boards and causing RAM to be undetected, but what's weird in my case is that it is being detected, being properly read as triple channel in CPU-Z, but Windows doesn't see it.

 

[JRW]

Ive finally decided to give my current PC a "heart transplant" and ordered a new Mobo/CPU/Memory, Ill be using the rest of my current hardware with it.

Current PC:
AMD X2 4800+ dual core @ stock 2.4ghz / 2GB PC3200 DDR1 (bottleneck anyone?)
Asus A8N SLI Premium mobo / 650W BFG PSU
X-Fi XtremeMusic soundcard
EVGA GTX 260 216 core Superclocked edition
HD's: 500GB SATA , 200GB IDE , 250GB IDE
Pioneer 111d DVD Burner

Parts I ordered:

i7 920 CPU

Gigabyte GA-EX58-UD3R mobo

Corsair XMS3 6GB (3 x 2GB) DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Triple Channel Kit

That should do the trick? considering my current cpu/memory lol

 

[Red]

If it matters, I'm using Corsair Dominator RAM. I'm not sure if there's a certain profile I should be using to "unlock" all three sticks in windows. Doesn't seem like there should be, since two of the sticks worked perfectly fine out of the box. As far as I can tell, I am using the profile that is recommend for this set.

 

[HomerSimpson-Man]

In the interest of following up, I found a beta version of the bios for the msi 770-c45 from some korean site (1.55 beta) and I was able to unlock the 4th core of my athlon II x3 435.

Just for reference, this is with three cores @ 3.4GHz

Now with the 4th core unlocked @ 3.4GHz:

I didn't think it would make THAT much of a difference, but alas it has. This is still with 0MB of L3 cache, I'm not sure which version of the BIOS can unlock the cache, but I don't think it's this one.

Compare this score of 11287 points to the core i5's 12733 points as seen here and you can see just how much bang for the buck I got, heaven forbid if i can unlock the l3 cache with the future bios update (i'm guessing i can if the 4th core is super stable even when overclocked) and if it ever do any over-voltaging with the $29 cooler i ordered.

That's pretty awesome. I'm even reading how people are unlocking the 3rd and 4th cores on the Phenom II X2 Black edition series. That's insane bang for you buck. :lol

I've been looking at upgrading my Athlon 64 X2 6000+ (3GHz) processor and I have a AM2+ motherboard, the Athlon Phenom II 435 you got there is only $89.99 on newegg! Does anyone know how big of a performance different I would get?

 

[Archie]

Newegg has had 5850s in stock all day. The prices start out at $309 and go as high as $359. :lol

 

[TouchMyBox]

That's pretty awesome. I'm even reading how people are unlocking the 3rd and 4th cores on the Phenom II X2 Black edition series. That's insane bang for you buck. :lol

I've been looking at upgrading my Athlon 64 X2 6000+ (3GHz) processor and I have a AM2+ motherboard, the Athlon Phenom II 435 you got there is only $89.99 on newegg! Does anyone know how big of a performance different I would get?

a 90nm processor to a 45nm processor is a pretty significant enough jump i'd say. Lots more cache, faster hypertransport, more cores, etc. Hell, earlier in this thread I showed how much better this chip has been for gaming than my e8400, which is much much better than an athlon 64 x2. Go for it.

Since you're probably using an older board, make sure that there is a bios update which will make it support these newer chips properly, as it might not out of the box.

 

[MWS Natural]

I was about to jump in today and grab 4 of the OCZ 30GB SSD's for a RAID 0 config until I found out TRIM doesn't work with RAID yet. Any news on when it should be available or if anyone is even working on this??

 

[EphemeralDream]

So my build seemed to work out fine, I borrowed a friend's video card since my mobo didn't have VGA and everything seemed to work fine on the very first boot. It was a little anti-climactic for a first build but that's definitely a good thing in this case. BIOS says CPU temp is about 40 C and the fan is spinning almost 2000 RPM. Are those good?

One of the first things I did was memtest86 to 100% which reported no problems. I'm going to install Win 7 (I threw XP on first since I only have upgrade key) but what other stuff/precautions should I be doing now that it's put together?

 

[markot]

If it matters, I'm using Corsair Dominator RAM. I'm not sure if there's a certain profile I should be using to "unlock" all three sticks in windows. Doesn't seem like there should be, since two of the sticks worked perfectly fine out of the box. As far as I can tell, I am using the profile that is recommend for this set.

I am not sure >.< sry. Sounds like a classic 32bit problem honestly. If you can do a completely new install with a 64bit version, it may fix it, I dont know though... at least you would know its not an issue with the windows install version >.>

 

[TouchMyBox]

Ive finally decided to give my current PC a "heart transplant" and ordered a new Mobo/CPU/Memory, Ill be using the rest of my current hardware with it.

Current PC:
AMD X2 4800+ dual core @ stock 2.4ghz / 2GB PC3200 DDR1 (bottleneck anyone?)
Asus A8N SLI Premium mobo / 650W BFG PSU
X-Fi XtremeMusic soundcard
EVGA GTX 260 216 core Superclocked edition
HD's: 500GB SATA , 200GB IDE , 250GB IDE
Pioneer 111d DVD Burner

Parts I ordered:

i7 920 CPU

Gigabyte GA-EX58-UD3R mobo

Corsair XMS3 6GB (3 x 2GB) DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Triple Channel Kit

That should do the trick? considering my current cpu/memory lol

I'm not sure if going the lga1366 route is the most cost effective route, but it will be snazzy nonetheless. Only part you'll have that might drag the experience down could be the hard drive. Of course I had no idea what you're using, but chances are it might be a little slow by today's standards.

I am not sure >.< sry. Sounds like a classic 32bit problem honestly. If you can do a completely new install with a 64bit version, it may fix it, I dont know though...

Clean installs are always the best route to go when you're running into issues. If this scares you for whatever reason, maybe try running a Live CD of a 64 bit linux distro of your choosing and see if you're able to allocate all of your memory.

 

[markot]

Just as long as you dont install stuff to the IDE drives and just use em for vids or music or backup.

I dont think Sata2 is that much faster than Sata1 drives, isnt the HDD speed the bottleneck >.<?

 

[TouchMyBox]

Just as long as you dont install stuff to the IDE drives and just use em for vids or music or backup.

I dont think Sata2 is that much faster than Sata1 drives, isnt the HDD speed the bottleneck >.<?

SATA doesn't indicate performance, just potential. With these new 500GB platter-based drives we're seeing a dramatic improvement in data transfer speeds. Just something to keep in mind.

 

[Lkr]

a 90nm processor to a 45nm processor is a pretty significant enough jump i'd say. Lots more cache, faster hypertransport, more cores, etc. Hell, earlier in this thread I showed how much better this chip has been for gaming than my e8400, which is much much better than an athlon 64 x2. Go for it.

Since you're probably using an older board, make sure that there is a bios update which will make it support these newer chips properly, as it might not out of the box.

I ordered the Phenom II X3 720 BE, and I'm not sure if I should OC or unlock the 4th core. I already have L3 cache of course, but I'm not sure what to do. I'm upgrading from a Pentium D 820, so anything is better

 

[senahorse]

Ive finally decided to give my current PC a "heart transplant" and ordered a new Mobo/CPU/Memory, Ill be using the rest of my current hardware with it.

Current PC:
AMD X2 4800+ dual core @ stock 2.4ghz / 2GB PC3200 DDR1 (bottleneck anyone?)
Asus A8N SLI Premium mobo / 650W BFG PSU
X-Fi XtremeMusic soundcard
EVGA GTX 260 216 core Superclocked edition
HD's: 500GB SATA , 200GB IDE , 250GB IDE
Pioneer 111d DVD Burner

Parts I ordered:

i7 920 CPU

Gigabyte GA-EX58-UD3R mobo

Corsair XMS3 6GB (3 x 2GB) DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Triple Channel Kit

That should do the trick? considering my current cpu/memory lol

Was going to do the same next week, but have decided to save some money and get the i5 750 instead. After reading a lot of reviews, articles etc I found that there is nearly no improvement when it comes to gaming performance from either the i7 or the triple channel ddr. Also it seems you can get an instant overclock to 3.4Ghz with the i5 just using the overclock genie on an MSI motherboard with air cooling (edit: why I initially typed passive I have no idea :lol).

 

[Red]

Ugh- I think I'm going to have to rip apart my machine and check the CPU pins. I cannot for the life of me get all 6GB of RAM to show up. I don't know what else to do. I just hope I can find the cause of this problem because the next step is returning the board and I am not at all looking forward to that possibility.

 

[Shambles]

Ugh- I think I'm going to have to rip apart my machine and check the CPU pins. I cannot for the life of me get all 6GB of RAM to show up. I don't know what else to do. I just hope I can find the cause of this problem because the next step is returning the board and I am not at all looking forward to that possibility.

You are running a 64 bit OS right?

Edit: Just saw your 32-bit comment. Nothing seems to be working properly for you today

 

[BravoSuperStar]

Ugh- I think I'm going to have to rip apart my machine and check the CPU pins. I cannot for the life of me get all 6GB of RAM to show up. I don't know what else to do. I just hope I can find the cause of this problem because the next step is returning the board and I am not at all looking forward to that possibility.

Have you swapped the sticks around to see if it's the ram?

 

[markot]

Im pretty sure its a windows problem if you can recognise the ram but windows cant use it.

 

[Red]

Tested it over and over again and have concluded that DIMMs A1 and A2 are completely and irrevocably dead. No fun at all.

I have 6GB of RAM right now, but I'm forced to run two sticks in a dual channel set up (there's a dead DIMM slot in each channel). I knew there would be something wrong by the end of all my trouble :lol

I checked the pins, they're all fine. Examined them for a good 20 minutes, using a magnifying glass and shining a flashlight on them from all angles trying to catch any glimpse of something out of the ordinary. I mean, I could just use the board as it is right now, but I think that ruins the purpose of having something this expensive. I sent an RMA request to newegg. Turns out this problem is pretty common, there are five or six pages of complaints on Asus's forums :lol

Wish I'd known in advance.

The funny thing about all of this is that CPU-Z detects the "dead" slots, which is a quirk shared by many of these cases. But they're useless since they're not being detected by Windows. Any RAM in those slots doesn't even show up in the system BIOS.

It's such a pain hitting a snag like this. Everything else is totally fine. CPU idles at 30C and hasn't gone over 45C at load. Ditto for my 5870. The whole system is running really cool, which was my main goal here. But then, I guess that's no surprise when you stick these components in an Antec 1200.

Thanks for all your suggestions guys, I appreciate it.

 

[Nobby]

That sucks man. I have the same mobo, cpu and ram as you and my install went smooth. Atleast your temps are good! I got a water cooler and I'm running o/c'd to 3.2 on stock voltage but I run about 42 degrees idle and I've gotten it up to 60 degrees load using intel burn test. Hopefully rma'ing the mobo fixes all your problems.

 

[markot]

I wont be getting an Asus MB again >.< too many little problems for me.

 

[TouchMyBox]

I ordered the Phenom II X3 720 BE, and I'm not sure if I should OC or unlock the 4th core. I already have L3 cache of course, but I'm not sure what to do. I'm upgrading from a Pentium D 820, so anything is better

Well, so long as your motherboard has a bios which supports the feature, there's nothing to lose when you try. Worst case scenario you enable the 4th core and windows won't boot, in which case you'll put it back to being disabled and you'll move on.

 

[birdchili]

It's such a pain hitting a snag like this.

I was having nightmares about having to RMA my power supply (which ended up being my fault. Next time I'm going to work the brick and mortar retailers before getting stuff online. The stuff I've got locally has been just as cheap as online, has no shipping costs, and returns are a million times simpler.

 

[JRW]

I'm not sure if going the lga1366 route is the most cost effective route, but it will be snazzy nonetheless. Only part you'll have that might drag the experience down could be the hard drive. Of course I had no idea what you're using, but chances are it might be a little slow by today's standards..

Ya my drives are due for an upgrade, The way I have it setup now my 250GB IDE has windows on it and my 500GB SATA has programs/games installed, would it be better to make the SATA drive my master and install BOTH the OS and Games/Progams, and only use the IDE drives as slaves?

 

[Red]

I was having nightmares about having to RMA my power supply (which ended up being my fault. Next time I'm going to work the brick and mortar retailers before getting stuff online. The stuff I've got locally has been just as cheap as online, has no shipping costs, and returns are a million times simpler.

Yeah, I'm definitely doing that next time I need to upgrade. Hopefully it won't be for a while :lol

I thought ordering online would be more convenient since I'm at college and I don't know of anywhere selling decent PC parts closer than a half hour away. There's a really cheap place down the road but stepping inside it makes me feel like I just warped back to 1998.

 

[rbenchley]

I ordered the Phenom II X3 720 BE, and I'm not sure if I should OC or unlock the 4th core. I already have L3 cache of course, but I'm not sure what to do. I'm upgrading from a Pentium D 820, so anything is better

Overclock it. Black Edition CPUs are easy overclockers, and that particular chip can be reliably clocked to around 3.7gHz, provided you have a decent HSF. Don't count on being able to unlock the fourth core. Give it a go, it it works and is stable, awesome. If not, you still have a great machine with three cores that will be much faster than your Pentium D.

 

[birdchili]

I thought ordering online would be more convenient since I'm at college and I don't know of anywhere selling decent PC parts closer than a half hour away. There's a really cheap place down the road but stepping inside it makes me feel like I just warped back to 1998.

there's definitely some awesome in ordering online, and i would have never got a 5850 as fast as i did hoofing it to real stores, but there's lots of issues too.

i'm in the core of a big city that has a one-block stretch downtown with about 20 pc stores, so the retail situation is really really good here. if i were a bit more remote, online would be untouchable.

lots of the mom&pop shops will custom-order parts from their suppliers for you too - it's just as fast as online, plus you can return to the retailer if there's a problem.

 

[TouchMyBox]

Ya my drives are due for an upgrade, The way I have it setup now my 250GB IDE has windows on it and my 500GB SATA has programs/games installed, would it be better to make the SATA drive my master and install BOTH the OS and Games/Progams, and only use the IDE drives as slaves?

I'd keep my main programs and OS as far away from an IDE drive as possible. Use the two IDE for media.

 

[SuicideUZI]

I upgraded my PC recently, here are the main components:

Intel Lynnfield Core i7-860 overclocked to 3.5GHz
ASUS Maximus III Formula LGA 1156 Intel P55 ATX Intel Motherboard
ATI Radeon 5870
8GB Mushkin Redline DDR3 1600

I want to try out crysis but waiting to see if it goes on sale on steam for the holiday sale

 

[Smokey]

i7 860 or i5 750?

any major differences, aside from price?

 

[darkpaladinmfc]

I upgraded my PC recently, here are the main components:

Intel Lynnfield Core i7-860 overclocked to 3.5GHz
ASUS Maximus III Formula LGA 1156 Intel P55 ATX Intel Motherboard
ATI Radeon 5870
8GB Mushkin Redline DDR3 1600

I want to try out crysis but waiting to see if it goes on sale on steam for the holiday sale

There is a Crysis demo available.

 

[darkpaladinmfc]

How would I go about building something with a budget of £250? I'm completely lost and have no idea, gaming-wise it would probably peak at Starcraft II on about medium settings.

 

[Seagoon]

I'm looking at buying a new sound card for use in my HTPC with Windows 7 x64. I need a card with an optical output for a reasonable price.

At the moment it looks like it's between the Asus Xonar DX (although driver support in Windows 7 looks a bit weak) - and the Creative X-Fi Titanium (non Fatality version).

Has anyone had any experience with these cards and Windows 7 x64?

 

[Terrifyer]

I'm looking at buying a new sound card for use in my HTPC with Windows 7 x64. I need a card with an optical output for a reasonable price.

At the moment it looks like it's between the Asus Xonar DX (although driver support in Windows 7 looks a bit weak) - and the Creative X-Fi Titanium (non Fatality version).

Has anyone had any experience with these cards and Windows 7 x64?

Yeah, I'm currently using the DX with Windows 7 x64, and haven't noticed any problems with it. Coming from Vista x64 I don't think there have been any changes in the driver, and I regularly use the optical output as well as the headphone out with dolby headphone.

 

[Romance Pie]

I'm looking at buying a new sound card for use in my HTPC with Windows 7 x64. I need a card with an optical output for a reasonable price.

At the moment it looks like it's between the Asus Xonar DX (although driver support in Windows 7 looks a bit weak) - and the Creative X-Fi Titanium (non Fatality version).

Has anyone had any experience with these cards and Windows 7 x64?

I'm using a Xonar DX as well in win7 64 with the drivers from the site. The only issue I had was the 32bit option causing firefox and steam not to load. But a look in the forums showed me how to disable that.

Also discovered Win 7 won't mix stereo sound (like iTunes music, youtube videos etc) through all 5.1 speakers, but the Xonar allows it in the options. Weird how XP does it but not Win 7

 

[Shapingo]

i7 860 or i5 750?

any major differences, aside from price?

The i7's have hyper threading and the i5's have turbo mode. Basically the i7 will be seen as 8 cores. I bought one over an i5 and am glad I did.

 

[Salaadin]

Finally got the my second bad RAM stick RMAed by Gskill. Ran both separately for 10 passes on memtest and theyre good.

Ive been running with only 2GBs of RAM for a few weeks and didnt think that I saw much of a difference. Buy was I wrong. Im back at 4GB and everything is so smooth. How the hell did I use this PC for the past few weeks.

 

[Struct09]

I'm looking at getting a Core i5 and overclocking it (will be my first dive into learning how to OC). Any special things I should take into consideration when purchasing the RAM and motherboard? And what should I look at in terms of cooling?

 

[HomerSimpson-Man]

a 90nm processor to a 45nm processor is a pretty significant enough jump i'd say. Lots more cache, faster hypertransport, more cores, etc. Hell, earlier in this thread I showed how much better this chip has been for gaming than my e8400, which is much much better than an athlon 64 x2. Go for it.

Since you're probably using an older board, make sure that there is a bios update which will make it support these newer chips properly, as it might not out of the box.

Well you practically sold me, pal.

Damn, the Phenom II x3 435 is just too freakin' good to pass up for $90!

I'm crossing my fingers my board supports.

 

[Minsc]

So i finally overclocked my CPU a bit, i7 920 @ 2.66GHz > i7 965 @ 3.2GHz, in my SFF case, with great results... being that I can still run my fans silent at 1000RPM, and it only hits 65C when running Prime95 @ 100% cpu load, which is about 10-15C more than it was before.

Still 35C away from the TJMax or whatever, and I rarely ever see my CPU usage hit 100%, even Dragon Age doesn't get it over 50%. At idle it sits about 5C hotter, at just under 35C instead of 30C, but I could always up the fans to 1600RPM if I feel the need, and suffer a little bit of noise.

The i7's have hyper threading and the i5's have turbo mode. Basically the i7 will be seen as 8 cores. I bought one over an i5 and am glad I did.

The i7 860 has turbo as well (as does the one above that). It's just the LG1366 line of i7s that don't have an aggressive turbo mode.