The New AMD Building Thread

Which OS are you using? Bear in mind the latest drivers from ATI do not support X series cards as they're now end-of-life.

 

WIN XP W/SP3
I've got these drivers & catalyst X600 WinXP,X1900 WinXP

 

Try grabbing Catalyst 9.3 from http://www.filehippo.com and see if that cures it. I think 9.3 was the last to support the X series. I'm reluctant to recommend 9.2 or 9.1 as both of those had severe bugs. 8.12 is the last good one before 9.3.

 

OK Thanks I'll give 9.3 a try

 

Sam,
LOL!! I agree! You have to be careful or you wind up with less than you expected. The 9500GT I have is a good example. The DDR2 model stinks, but the DDR3 models are very good cards for the money. I was lucky as it only cost me $44.00 including tax and shipping for mine. That's official as the $15 rebate check just came yesterday!

Incidentally, I found out why I've been having all these niggling little problems with my computer! Nothing serious, but I've suspected software all along. Someone stole my XP-Pro/SP2 CD and replaced it with the Student edition, which has a number of problems. I just happened to take a good look at the disk yesterday and discovered that they forged my writing on the disk! Can you believe that? I know who it was, a friend of my friend Adam! I don't understand things like that at all. All he had to do was ask and I would have made him a copy. I was playing around with the Intel yesterday and discovered that I was having the same little annoyances with it as I was having with mine. Little things like AVG not being able to find and read the license number, or google only displaying text in its banner rather than the fancy graphic! I googled the volume name and it was the student edition. I threw my student edition away long ago just because of problems just like these! Fortunately I had an ISO of the right one. The P-III runs much better now and all the nuances are gone.

Thanks again,
Russ

 

Interesting, I remember you commenting about the student edition...

 

Haha the Student Edition was horrible. It was stripped down in a lot of ways and only allowed barebones functionality in a lot of aspects. I'm currently using the Corporate Edition problem-free. I do own a copy of SP2 Professional but it's such a hassle to update with my internet connection. I like just having a fully updated copy with SP3 slipstreamed.

And what a guy knicking your copy of XP. I would have just as gladly burned him one.

I agree with you guys that AMD has gotten their stuff a bit confusing lately. Seeing as I've been keeping up since day one I haven't had much issue adjusting. But I have lots of people coming to me asking them to help find a good motherboard for their new tris/quads.

Nvidia are guilty of brand confusion as well. They relabel and reconfigure everything just to make new cards. Though I actually like the GeForce 9 series. They offer a much better value than the 8 series ever did. Though it couldn't have hurt one bit to call them 8900s...

 

Estuansis,
Some people do bad things just because there's a certain thrill for them in getting over on someone. I've used it a bunch of times and never even noticed. I mean who looks that hard at a disk they use often. Another good case for using a copy and putting the original away in a safe place.

BTW, I had to lower the CPU Northbridge frequncy and the HT link frequency on my UD4H to 2000MHz. I was getting little sparkly artifacts around text and icons on my screen. I've since found out that 2000 works the best, according to the AMD Forum. I have to agree as it seems to be a bit smoother with the video than before. It didn't change the benchmarks enough to even see any real difference.

Best Regards,
Russ

 

Haha you noticed that too? I did the exact same thing yesterday. Problem-free ever since

 

Estuansis,
The funny part is if it booted clean through the black and white screens, it wouldn't do it again unless you re-booted. It could be on for 10-12 hours and no problem. It was a case of either doing it from the post screen on or not at all!

Russ

 

Well mine booted and benched fine. 3D Mark and Orthos multiple runs for days and not a single issue. But it would get random bluescreens in Crysis and weird video corruption in Far Cry 2 that could be cleared by alt+tabbing out and then back into the game. Dropped the HTT and NB to 2000MHz and it's been problem free since. AFAIK some of them are capable of holding 2200MHz stable but neither of ours seems up to the task. Oh well, as you said, no big loss

 

Estuansis,
If you don't have the artifacts on boot-up in the DOS screens, there's no problem with FC2. It will run that way, well 17 hours that I know of for sure without issue and no problem with anything. Now I'm not so sure it's those adjustments. It looks like a series of little dots that surround the icons, and mostly underlines the text. If they do appear in the DOS screens, I would just do a Ctrl/Alt/Del to reboot before windows gets to the start screen and it usually comes up without any artifacts at all. I'm probably going to try the OBG early this week and see if it happens there! I just don't feel like fooling with it right now.

Russ

 

Well the chips are technically 2nd version Phenom Is. So I'm not surprised that 2.2GHz is a bit out of reach. I recently recommended the 7750BE to a friend looking for the cheapest possible upgrade to his 4850e. The 7750 BE works and OCs with his fine with his 780G motherboard. He is using the OBG and he could only manage 2GHz max on the NB and HTT. I showed him your recommended settings and he can only bench stable with 2GHz. Seems like our chips were lucky to be stable at all at 2.2GHz NB! The speed improvements are still apparent though and it benches within margin of error so still no complaints from me. I will still be using multi over FSB to OC

 

Absolutely! The biggest change is from 1800 to 2000. The change from 2000 to 2200 is minimal at best! I think that the 7750-BE is being discontinued in favor of the 7850-BE. Newegg lists it as Sold Out. I don't think I've ever seen that before except for special pricing. BTW, your friend can get one of the OEMs for $49.95 at the Egg. Much shorter warranty (30 days), but chances are very good that if nothing goes wrong with it in 30 days, it should be good for a long while. Just don't fry it with too much voltage. I'm going to replace it with the 720 triple as soon as I can. I don't think I'll have any problem selling the 7750-BE!

Best Regards,
Russ

 

This is a review for the "GA-MA78GM-US2H." Its a micro atx that supports all "AM" sockets. The fact that this guys board went up in smoke, makes me nervous about putting high wattage Cpu's in it. Any thoughts on this. This guy says he has a high tech understanding. But im really wondering about that given his awfully brief review. Should I stick with an ATX for Quad PhenomII? Cause I believe my brother will wanna upgrade eventually. If so, then this board is now looking tempting.
GA-MA790X-UD4P

 

Most 780G board will go up in smoke with quads due to the power requirements. 790s have better power management and will support quads and OC them better. My advice is:

Quad = 790
dual/tri = anything you can afford

 

Thanks buddy. I had a thought about that as well

 

Oman7,
That's rubbish! I don't believe it for a moment! That MB is a 140w board just like mine and the Power regulation is the same 4+1 as my UD4H. He either used a crap PSU or did something stupid, or is full of it! Working for 4 months and then going up in smoke just doesn't ring true to me at all. That's not generally the way it works with modern electronics! I also don't believe the warped MB either. That particular board has a substantial back plate on it, just like mine, so how could it be warped. Take a look for yourself.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128379&Tpk=GA-MA78GM-US2H. You couldn't bend it if you sat on it! Even their cheapest motherboards have better than average quality! That's the first thing Fred said about his when he took it out of the box! The power regulation is superb, and I've got an inexpensive (but good) Cooler Master 500w PSU! Fred's had no trouble at all with his either! He cursed a lot while getting the CPU cooler on, while I laughed my a$$ off, but his has worked flawlessly, and it was his first ever build! I think the guy has a grudge with GigaByte!

Russ

 

Estuansis! That's baloney! The GigiByte 780s are 140w motherboards. If that clown had looked at the Mb and understood what he was saying about the board being so warped, he never would have saidit as that's impossible. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128379&Tpk=GA-MA78GM-US2H.
look at the back side of the motherboard and you tell me how it could even be possible! He may have had problems, but there's no way the board could warp so bad that he couldn't seat the CPU! That's a substantial brace back there! I would tell him to his face that he's a liar about that!

Russ

 

it could be a one off. these things do happen. hes not saying everyone has that probelm, only he does