The New AMD Building Thread

Shaff,
I know you are a logical person. Just look at the back brace on that MB and tell me how it could be so warped that you couldn't seat the CPU! There's just no way that it's possible without bending the metal. If it was bent like that, he was pretty stupid to even try it! I'm sorry, but I think he is lying! I recommended that board to Fred! Ask him, and he will tell you the same thing. Also, if it caught fire that almost means he had a crappy PSU! Any decent PSU would have shut down first if it had a load big enough to go up in flames! How's that expression go? Oh yeah, "I question his veracity"! LOL!! I've been at this for 20 years and I have never, I repeat never seen a motherboard burst into flames! I've seen PSU's go up in smoke, but never a motherboard! I've seen memory smoke, but never burst into flames. I've seen VRMs blow, but never burst into flames. Terrible rotten egg smell, but no flames! He's full of it!

Best Regards,
Russ

 

I HAVE seen a 780G board go up in flames OCing a 940 so I say it's possible. The boards just aren't made to handle high wattage CPUs. Not only do the VRMs blow the whole board can go up! Thus my recommendation of a 790 board for quads.

 

I'm not saying all motherboards with the 780G chipset, but I would sincerely doubt that it was a GigaByte. If it was, it was a very early one that's not made anymore! I know of a bunch of other brands that experienced this problem when the 940 first came out, but I never heard of it on a GigaByte! I don't recall any that weren't 140w!

Russ

 

Well...I certainly have no issues with my Gigabyte board *knocks on wood desk* But I dont know. I have an MSI, a Gigabyte, both are new-ish LOL! And, I have an 8yr old Asus. That sucker is a die hard! I would not mind giving them another shot. But...this board is not for me LOL! I still have to email/callup MSI tomorrow and see what were gonna do. And im not gonna be happy *wink wink* so they better be brown nosing LOL! Or i'll yank my business from them so hard, they're gonna lose multiple people!

Thanks for your comments guys. At the moment, im so irritated there is a 70% chance im gonna cut my losses, and just totally junk the board, and start fresh. Depending on what HE wants. But I know a great deal more about computers than he does. Heck, he checks his emails, and listens to music, youtube, etc. He's more of a carpenter/grease monkey than anything. Totally not an insult either. He's 100times more a people person than I am. Im lucky to stumble my way through a couple of sentences LOL! Yes, people make me extremely nervous. Social Anxiety

 

Oman7,
If you can find a way to email them, you're a better man than I am. They have no email, not even general. They have one for laptops, and that's it! If you find a way to email them about your motherboard, let me know, please! The last time I called them about the software for the 9500GT, I was on hold for twenty minutes, only to be given a link to nVidia. I could have done that for myself! I can't afford to spend that much time on the phone at our current cell phone day rates, as they've gone way up in the last 6 months. MSI is a maddening company! Once in a while they come out with something really good, but their lack of support and decent customer service, at least in the US just kills them every time. They had a really nice P35 motherboard, but never followed it up with anything new. In a lot of ways, Foxconn is the same. They will bring out something absolutely brilliant once in a while, and just let it die for lack of support, instead of going forward and building on something good. Then again, they have a good business making OEM boards, so maybe they are satisfied with that.

As far as your Social Anxiety, you'll probably grow out of it. Look at me! When I was in grade school, I was an Introvert. Today, I guess you could call me outspoken! LOL!! I'm perfectly capable of opening my mouth and sticking my foot in it, right up to my elbow! LOL!!

Best Regards,
Russ

 

You like the 9 series? I don't. A price cut to the 8800s would have sufficed.
Let's see, the 9600GSO is the same as an 8800GS, the 9600GT is halfway between the 8800GS and 8800GT, the 9800GT IS an 8800GT, the 9800GTX is an overclocked 8800GTS G92, the 9800GTX+ is the same card overclocked further.
I always personally thought if they really had to have that many cards they'd have been better off with something like 8800GL, 8800GS, 8800GX, 8800GT, 8800GTS, 8800GTX, 8800GTR, 8800GTI and 8800GTV. I actually think that'd have been less confusing. Ah well. They haven't done too well with the current gen either,
GTX260 (192), GTX260 (216), GTX275, GTX280, GTX285 and GTX295. All AMD have is HD4830, HD4850, HD4870, HD4890 and HD4870X2. I daresay that's pretty straightforward.


Anyway, back on topic, I wouldn't mind betting he screwed the board directly to the case and shorted out the CPU socket to cause it to catch fire. I know what happens if you overload a CPU socket, and it's not pretty, but it's not fire. Not initially, anyway. I thought it was a wire trapped in a fan at first, then realised it was actually arc'ing coming from the regulation circuit. At this point I pretty much made it clear to Shaff I wasn't going to test his CPUs in one of my boards again... haha. That said, this EP31-DS3L is running right now back at home many months after the incident, without any fuss.

You would actually be amazed at how bent you can find components arrive in, depending on how well they're packaged. That said, for them to be truly unusably warped, the box usually has to be completely trashed as well.

 

haha that was fun wasnt it sam

tbh the new lines arnt too confusing.

the GTX 280 is discontiued, so after u discoutn that, all is fine.

the 4730 is odd. a 55nm, card, so shouldnt be in the 47 series, basically an OCed 4830 with DDR5. where as the 4770 is 40nm. thats confusing. other wise yeah, its very clear

 

Discontinued, but this past week alone I've seen at least two or three be added to people's builds. You can still buy the damn things, for silly money. The GTX275 is so much cheaper.
Isn't the HD4730 just a Powercolor venture at the moment, or is it an official ATI product?

 

mm not sure, but thats a good point.

lol @ people buying gtx 280s. i mean if they can get them for £150 thats good but any more is awaste

 

No no, we're talking basically GTX285 prices here. To be honest, the GTX280 is still a very powerful card, so I think paying about £200 for one is reasonable, but not any more than that.

 

Sam,
See, that's the thing! You can't short out the CPU socket. The whole area is covered by the plate on the back. The plate itself is stout! If I hit you over the head with it and nailed you with the plate, it would fracture your skull! It's heavy! Secondly, it's not just a plate, but more like a shallow dish with two re-enforced areas top and bottom The screws go through the motherboard to the mount for the CPU cooler. You certainly would not be able to bend the CPU socket without breaking it, and what kind of an idiot would try to put a CPU in a motherboard in the condition he claims, to begin with. That certainly doesn't sound like someone with high technical skills. Remember too, Most of the early reviews and tests were done mostly on 780G GigaByte motherboards, because they were the first to get good results overclocking at reasonable volts. MSI and BioStar were struggling to make theirs overclock at much higher higher voltages. Forget nVidia chipsets completely. They weren't even in the picture. They got their a$$ whipped completely in a contest they were so sure of winning that they brought all the company big shots along to watch the fun and celebrate the victory, when AMD held the OBG shoot out. The 780G/HD3200 drubbed nVidia that day. Second place was a very distant second place!

Also I don't know if anybody noticed but he said he had the first one for 4 months, which means he had to have purchased it very early January and it didn't even come out until a month later than that! I can't find a review older than February 7! I think it's BS! I think he's a fan of another brand. He said he liked the first one until it died. that was posted on newegg 5/24/09, after he received the replacement. He didn't even buy it from Newegg, so why go there to complain! Add up all the facts, and it smells fishy!

I remember when that MB came out because I had been working with Fred on his build, and it wasn't out then. In fact I had Fred change his order at the very last minute to include it instead of the board he was going to buy because it was the same MB, but only 1 PCI-E slot and it was $15 cheaper, and it was going to run stock, with no need for Crossfire! This was in mid February. I know I just looked up the email! Fred will confirm everything I said about his build! The guy on newegg is a liar!

Russ

 

Russ, the first board you recommended to me(GA-MA790X-UD4P) is sure looking tempting LOL! Im noticing another mistake by newegg? They show it to have only 6 Sata ports, and yet both the Picture, and gigabytes website, insist that it has 8. I obviously believe Gigabytes website! But why are the ports purple? Is there a significant difference between the ports? Are they on separate chips?
Gigabyte Mobo link
Newegg link

 

Oman7,
It's because the Southbridge can only give you a max of 6, so the two Purple ones are Realtek. That's why with some that have an external Sata port, you only have 5 internally! The purple ones on my P35-DS3R allowed hot swap, so if you wanted an external sata you could plug one in or remove it while the computer is running! You use the little green arrow thing in the taskbar, just like you do with a card reader to remove them.

Russ

 

Only 6 huh? Yes, im difficult to please LOL! Nah, that does make a great deal of sense buddy. Thank you once again.

So then, it could probably act much like a usb header?

 

Yes, it would certainly appear that way. This board also has a cutoff on the southbridge at 6 ports. The other 4 are on god knows what LOL!

What is the heatsink on the right protecting? Ive never seen a board with this layout before. It almost looks like it has 2 southbridges!!!
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128377

 

Oman7,
Just a guess, but an educated guess. I would think it's the controller chip for the additional 4 Sata ports. That would make sense! It works like USB when you disconnect a drive (Hot Swap)! You turn them off with the "Safely remove hardware" button in the task bar, and then remove them.

Russ

 

They're not purple like those other ones. Perhaps they're simply additional Hdd's/Odd's without Hot swap. Yah, that makes sense. Why in the world would a Mobo need 2 southbridges LOL! Its just a controller chip. But would a Sata Controller chip really get hot enough to need a heatsink? I guess so eh LOL! Thanks again

 

Yes, it's a heatsink for Gigabyte's RAID controller.

 

AnyBody here having problems with Firefox according to my Properties I've got ver 1.9.0.3399. This last month Its been crashing and stalling on me a lot. If I Revert back to an older version what would be a stable version
Sorry for the off topic

 

You're still using Firefox 1? Good god, I didn't think they still updated that. Firefox 3 has been a bit dodgy, but Firefox 2 is stable enough.