The New AMD Building Thread

Estuansis,
I only made the post to try and wake some people up. This is a dangerous world we live in and it's going to get more dangerous as time goes by. Once the information is out there, you can't change it or remove it! I discovered this by looking for my friend Gina, a sometimes member on AD. She's big into this Social Networking crap. I found her Address, phone number, SS number, Cell phone number, driver's license number, all by just googling her name! People need to know the risk they place themselves in with all this garbage! Cool can get you in lots of trouble!

About Gina and my search, the Nurse in ICU that was taking care of her in the hospital, told me that she had passed away, at 34. Very sad! I'll miss her.

Russ

 

Being careful is all but useless in this day and age. Every action you take from buying a Whopper at Burger King to sending an E-Mail is monitored for key words and and certain cues. Every once in a while I just like to say "I know you're listening" to an empty room. I may be crazy, but I also may have just freaked the hell out of some secret organization somewhere! LOL!

Very sorry to hear about the loss of your friend Russ. I too recently lost a friend to IV drug use and poor life choices. Seeing those younger than you passing away is hard to swallow, especially when it's someone close. This one in particular was the only person able to get my nephew/godson to sleep for the first three months of his life. We had a lot of good memories and his death was a shocking blow.

 

If it's any consolation I don't use Twitter at all, and I relatively rarely use my facebook page, I may use it to contact other people, but rarely post anything about myself.
As far as conspiracy theorists go, well aware of the stories of the Patriot Act, is one of a fair few reasons why I would only ever want to visit the US, not live there.
I'm not convinced we have had contact with intelligent alien life. As for September 11th, I'm not convinced there was much more to that either.

This I do agree with you on.

Finding someone's address, home and mobile phone number through social networking sites is easy, if you display it. How on earth did you find the rest though?

Sorry to hear about your loss Russ, I remember the discussions about the system you were building for her.

15 posts off-topic and counting

 

Sam,
If I remember rightly, she had the same MB and CPU you had with your E4300/P5N-E. It only took 3 rounds of motherboards to get one that worked! It took her almost 6 months to get the $1600 back from Asus she had to lay out for the extra motherboards. $800 per motherboard was a little bit over the top, by anybodies standards! Newegg was out of them, so she had to deal with Asus!

I found a lot more than that! All I did was google her name!

Russ

 

$1600? What in the F**?
The dead P5N-E SLI was the last straw for me, with the prior dead A8N-SLI SE and the dodgy HD3870. It's only just amusing that even after I replaced the P5N-E with a Gigabyte P35C-DS3R (which is still working in someone else's system today) the A8R-MVP failed 9 months later, and even then my aggravations with Asus weren't done. I reluctantly bought Shaff's Maximus II off him as I had issues with Gigabytes running crossfire properly. That lasted all of about 3 months before it too went belly up and had to be replaced with a Gigabyte.

I feel for Rob/Will with their problems with Gigabyte boards, but part of me feels it's hypochondriac-ism, any fault that appears they blame the board due to past problems. That's basically the attitude I took when my system started becoming unstable with the Maximus II, but I did so because the board was an Asus, whaddya know, my hunch was right!

 

Another WTF from me on $800 a motherboard. WOW.

Currently have yet to have a single issue with a Gigabyte board. I think one friend killed his 740G board but he was trying to run an OCd Quad in it and the power hungry 940 like mine, lol. Poor thing didn't stand a chance.

Personally have never had a dead ASUS board in one of my systems. A8N-5X, A8N-E, and an M2N32SLI-Deluxe. All solid boards and good OCers. But these are also all old boards. As far as repairs go, ASUS boards make up a surprisingly large percentage of the PCs I work on. Specifically I have a running tally of over 10 dead P5N-Es. Nvidia + ASUS = FAIL. The other large majority is Nvidia chipset boards other than the 650i. After that I've replaced a few ECS, PC Chips and Foxconn boards.

Conversely the higher end Foxconns you can get in Japan are supposed to be ultra high quality. I have a long time friend on another forum living in Tokyo and he uses Foxconn exclusively. Some of the features on those boards are impressive. Such a shame the only ones I've seen personally are bargain basement boards. If they'd market more of their high end stuff in the US and the UK I'm sure they would have a cult following.

Would like to see more DFI boards as well. Not seen a lot of them in the US and know very few to have used them. They don't seem to offer as many mid-range boards as other companies which is a shame because their overall design and construction is top-notch. They do tend to have a few compatibility issues but I haven't had a single problem with my LANParty since the day I got it. I think it's mostly a RAM problem. Any stick will work but certain voltage/latency combos will give it fits.

 

You didn't see the Strikers then, 6+ dead boards per person. You'd think they'd stop at three, but given this was all within a year, it's not surprising. The average lifetime of most PC motherboards is about 4-5 years. The average lifetime of an Asus board seems to be about 9 months. The average lifetime of an nvidia Asus board is 6-8 weeks. Terribad.


You won't be seeing any more DFI boards, the brand was culled. They only produce server boards now.

 

They should have called the Strikers, Failure I, Failure II and so on. I think we are on Crosshair IV now, although it's supposed to be a very good motherboard, time will tell. My biggest gripe with Asus is they are in complete denial with well documented and known problems. I mean what do you say to a Tech that tells you they weren't experiencing any problems with the P5N-E, while the pages of their own forum read like an Obituary column for dead ones? If you want to be really frustrated, wait 27 days for them to repair a motherboard, and then get it back with the same problem that you originally sent it in for. After almost 2 months without my E6750, it lasted untill 14 days past the warranty.

I've experienced problems with GigaByte boards as well, all except one, my own. For some reason I'm always shipping them out on a Thursday, so I usually get one back on Monday, so 3 day service is pretty good. Even if it was a repair, I don't consider 8-9 days, door to door unreasonable. I just got my replacement 790X-UD4P back this morning, since they were unable to determine what was wrong with it. 1 week was OK by me. They shipped my original back to Gigabyte TW, to determine what the problem was. My friend's 785G will be here tomorrow, since they were able to repair it (bad VRM). I consider the time, very reasonable.her

I won't say that I will never buy another Asus, although it would take a lot to get me to buy one. Who knows, they just might get better management next week! LOL!! My bad on Gina's motherboards though. It was $1410.88 that was owed , so that's $705.44 each, plus they charged shipping for both!

Russ

 

how did they charge $800 for an RMA?

 

I'm not sure I'd never buy one, but it'd have to be a good 2 or 3 years without me hearing a single complaint against them before I'd trust them. As of now I see no sign that they're going to reverse the dramatic downturn in quality they chose a few years back.

 

Companies have slipped in and out before. As far as I remember, Abit boards were very hit and miss but the good ones were amazing.

 

I'm sure most of you have heard of the manufacturer "Rolls Royce". They hand build their vehicles. Now that's pride right there! PC component manufacturers are all about the end figures($$$). Pride? What's that? LOL! I Shat you not! If a Mobo manufacturer like that existed, I would not hesitate to spend 4 times what I do. And I don't think I need to explain why that is It's quite irritating when our components fail. The manufacturers just see more money spent! Pretty sick...

 

Lol hand-built motherboards. Kind of tricky really, since you can't exactly hand build a chipset. Or a PCB for that matter.

 

Gigabyte seems to be the one exception to this time and time again. They are the only brand of board I actually expect to be working when they arrive. Maybe I'm still too stubborn to recognize other brands but I'm way more worried about my DFI going than my Gigabyte. And DFI haven't given me any reason at all to distrust them. I'm simply skeptical of brands that can't keep a sterling rep. Even Gigabyte's worst problems are just minor issues on otherwise awesome boards. Now that's a damn good quality product. Just for the record Gigabyte's 850W Odin PSU is supposed to be exceptionally good. I almost bought one before I found the 620HX.

 

To be fair I've had one DOA with Gigabyte, and none with Asus. However, the only DOA I had with the Gigabyte was that the PCIe controller couldn't handle two graphics cards, it was fine with one. Now that is the sort of the thing most people wouldn't even notice.

I hear mixed reviews on the Odin units. I heard they were supposed to be OK units, but were quite noisy and not particularly well built inside.
I'd still recommend Corsair PSUs time and time again, despite the fact I don't actually own any. For an 850W system I'd happily recommend my ZM850-HP, but the smaller Nexus units I use are just too expensive to be purchased by anyone but a silencer. 13dB for the Nexus units up to 200W (a lot!) and 14-15dB for the Zalman up to 400W is amazing, considering the quietest of Corsair's units, the TX650, is 15-16dB and only up to around 200W, with the HX520/620 units around 17dB up to 350W. The CWT-based Corsairs are pretty naff for noise, I don't even think they idle under 20dB. Could be worse, the Toughpower 750W I used to have idled about 22-23dB, that was annoying, full speed 1600rpm SFF21Fs aren't much noisier than that.

The best quiet PSUs these days, from SPCR's chart:

100W:
1st: Seasonic X-400 Fanless (<10dB)
1st: Seasonic X-650 (<10dB)
1st: Enermax Eco80+ 500W (<10dB)
4th: Enermax Modu/Pro87+ 500W (11dB)
4th: Nexus Value 430W (11dB)
4th: Nexus NX-5000 R3 530W (11dB)
7th: Antec CP-850 (12dB)
7th: Antec TP-750 (12dB)
9th: Enermax Modu82+ 625W (13dB)
10th: Seasonic M12D 850W (14dB)
10th: Coolermaster SilentPro M 700W (14dB)
10th: Nexus RX-8500 850W (14dB)

150W:
1st: Seasonic X-400 Fanless (<10dB)
2nd: Enermax Modu/Pro87+ 500W (11dB)
2nd: Seasonic X-650 (11dB)
2nd: Nexus Value 430W (11dB)
2nd: Nexus NX-5000 R3 530W (11dB)
6th: Antec CP-850 (12dB)
6th: Enermax Eco80+ 500W (12dB)
6th: Antec TP-750 (12dB)
9th: Enermax Modu82+ 625W (13dB)
10th: Seasonic M12D 850W (14dB)
10th: Coolermaster SilentPro M 700W (14dB)
10th: Nexus RX-8500 850W (14dB)

200W:
1st: Seasonic X-400 Fanless (<10dB)
2nd: Enermax Modu/Pro87+ 500W (11dB)
3rd: Seasonic X-650 (12dB)
3rd: Nexus NX-5000 R3 530W (12dB)
3rd: Antec CP-850 (12dB)
6th: Seasonic M12D 850W (14dB)
6th: Enermax Modu82+ 625W (14dB)
6th: Antec TP-750 (14dB)
9th: Chill Innovation CP-700M (15dB)
9th: Antec Signature 650 (15dB)

250W:
1st: Seasonic X-400 Fanless (<10dB)
2nd: Enermax Modu/Pro87+ 500W (11dB)
3rd: Seasonic X-650 650W (14dB)
3rd: Nexus NX-5000 R3 530W (14dB)
3rd: Antec CP-850 (14dB)
3rd: Seasonic M12D 850SW (14dB)
3rd: Antec TP-750 (14dB)
8th: Enermax Modu82+ 625W (15dB)
8th: Chill Innovation CP-700M (15dB)
8th: Antec Signature 650 (15dB)

300W:
1st: Seasonic X-400 Fanless (<10dB)
2nd: Enermax Modu/Pro87+ 500W (14dB)
2nd: Antec CP-850 (14dB)
2nd: Seasonic M12D 850W (14dB)
5th: Seasonic X-650 (16dB)
5th: Enermax Modu82+ 625W (16dB)
7th: Chill Innovation CP-700M (17dB)
8th: Nexus Value 430W (18dB)
8th: Antec TP-750 (18dB)
8th: Antec Signature 650 (18dB)
8th: Silverstone DA700 (18dB)

400W:
1st: Seasonic X-400 Fanless (<10dB)
2nd: Nexus Value 430W (19dB)
3rd: Enermax Modu/Pro87+ 500W (20dB)
4th: Nexus NX-5000 R3 530W (24dB)
4th: Seasonic M12D 850W (24dB)
6th: Nesteq ECS7001 700W (25dB)
7th: Antec CP-850 (26dB)
7th: Enermax Modu82+ 625W (26dB)
9th: Coolermaster SilentPro M 700W (27dB)
10th: Antec Signature 650W (28dB)

500W:
1st: Enermax Modu/Pro87+ 500W (23dB)
2nd: Nexus NX-5000 R3 530W (25dB)
3rd: Seasonic X-650 650W (31dB)
4th: Nexus RX-8500 850W (32dB)
5th: Enermax Eco80+ 500W (33dB)
6th: Chill Innovation CP-700M (34dB)
6th: Coolermaster SilentPro M700W (34dB)
8th: Cougar GX-700 (35dB)
8th: Silverstone DA700 (35dB)
10th: Antec Signature 650W (36dB)
10th: NesteQ ECS7001 700W (36dB)

600W:
1st: Seasonic X-650 (32dB)
2st: Nexus RX-8500 850W (33dB)
3nd: Chill Innovation CP-700M (34dB)
3nd: Coolermaster SilentPro M700W (34dB)
5th: Cougar GX-700 (36dB)
6th: Enermax Modu82+ 625W (37dB)
6th: NesteQ ECS7001 700W (37dB)
8th: Antec TP-750 (40dB)
9th: Silverstone DA700 (41dB)
10th: Seasonic M12D 850W (42dB)

850W:
1st: Nexus RX-8500 (33dB)
2nd: Seasonic M12D 850W (42dB)
3rd: Antec CP-850 (45dB)


Now obviously bear in mind that only includes the PSUs tested with the new procedure. Some of the old good silent PSUs will fit into those charts nicely.
For any PCP&C fans out there, the Silencer 610W was included in the new test regime, it didn't make the top 10 in any of those tests. If more PSUs had been included, it wouldn't even make the top 50.

 

If anyone's EVER even thought about buying a product from SilenX, read this:


http://www.silentpcreview.com/article1063-page8.html


Funniest review of a product I've seen in ages

"Ripple was in excess of a Volt. 120mV is the maximum allowed"
"Full load efficiency was 65%"
"You are only allowed to use two screws to secure the 6lb weight of this PSU"
"Despite being a fanless PSU with the tag 'the quietest PSU in the world' we had to disconnect the attached 60mm fan (Huh?) for fair testing"
"With no fan, this unit produced 27dB of noise"
"This PSU still comes with a manual switch for 110/230V, has Passive PFC, and has an adjustable output knob to compensate for load sagging, something we haven't seen in PSUs for years"

Utterly hilarious.

Edit: Ahaha, it gets better, I've just spotted this:

 

Huh, editing a post spawned another?

 

LOL! I don't necessarily mean hand built motherboards. Just the idea that every board would be visually inspected. Pride in the pc department. Ahh, what a world it would be

Just had a thought. I wonder if they employ lasers for spotting defects in the production line. Lasers could see things that our eyes could not Lasers properly deployed, could spot probably nearly 100% of all defects...

 

shaff,
My mistake there. I just came across the invoices and they were $647 each + Tax and Shipping. $705.44 total, each! I questioned the charge myself, and they said that this was to insure the return of the bad one. Ya Think? LOL!! Like I said, they can't refund the tax, but if they did like I asked, and billed the extra as a deposit, which would have been non-taxable, Gina would have saved about $80!

My MB came yesterday, and I have it running rock solid stable at 3.8GHz, at much lower voltages. I just finished a 7.934GB rip with DVDRB/CCE, 2 pass, in 29 minutes! I can run it at 3.9 with the same settings, and it will pass stress testing for 8 hours, but will crash running DVDRB/CCE at that speed. I promised myself, no overvolting this time, and I'm more than pleased with it at 3.8GHz. At 26-27C Ambient, the CPU never exceeded 42C, and the cores never went over 46C. It runs smooth as glass, and very quick!

Russ

 

What are your volts at russ? I think I could easily go beyond 3.9! Well...perhaps not easily, but 3.9 didn't take that much effort. Northbridge temps are a bit warm, but CPU temps are very agreeable.