The (new) Official PC building thread!

sammorris,
Thanks Sam, but I want to avoid Ati if I can possibly help it. I recently went through 2 days of hell trying to get my old X800GTO AGP 8X installed in a friends machine. I tried so many different versions of Catalyst till I finally found one that would work if I disabled the startup for catalyst, which I had to remove the .exe file to do. Otherwise it would hang the computer in the middle of Catalyst loading. Locked it up solid so that you had to completely power down. I tried installing just the driver, but it still insisted on installing Catalyst. I don't understand at all since I started out installing v. 5.8, which is what came on the original CD that came with it! I've never experienced anything like that before. Just another reason I stick with Brand X!

Best Regards,
Russ

 

To be honest, i think both sides have their fair share of driver issues, I know of a quite a few people who avoid nvidia for the same reason. Catalyst drivers I never found a problem back when I had my X800 Pro AGP, but they took a turn for the worse around 7.12. Finally now at 8.5 and beyond they're starting to become decent again.

 

What would be a good case fan ? I/m in need of one for the front intake, I looked at newegg they don't seem to be that expensive.

 

creaky,

Nah! I was just trying to make a point! LOL!! That's why I posted about that eMachine I picked up, threw out all the garbage components and replaced them with a 64x2 4800+ AM2, a 500 watt Thermaltake PSU, 2GB of 800MHz G.Skill DDR2 and a Freezer 64 to cool it. It's one nice machine, but the only things left original are the case, a decent Foxcon MB and the exhaust fan! Get this, it has a single 92mm exhaust fan! That's it! No intake, no nothing, just the one fan. In a room with only a Swamp cooler and the temps recently being 104-106F outside with the room being about 29C, it runs 2 to 3C above room temp while playing games. The warmest I've seen it get yet is 36C. The 65nm chips run a lot cooler than the old 90nm chips did. It's an amazing little machine and I think AMD is getting a bad rap because it's a far better computer than I was led to believe from sources here. Perhaps the people here that bad-mouth AMD, should maybe have a little experience with them and maybe know what the hell they are talking about before they dismiss them as crap!

Best regards,
Russ

 

This is what Im thinking for fron intake
Thermaltake A1280 120mm Case Fan 14.50/W Shipping
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811999113

 

well i havent posted in a day or so, but i have good reason to now.

Mort81. do you have room up there in the 4.0ghz club
theres a new member.


yup i got her stable and running smoothly.
took some advise from a few peeps here and there.
took my vcore up to 1.3685v
MCH to +.1
FSBto +.1

and for the mem if i had some good DDR2 1066 PC8500 i could go higher.
the DDR2 800 (PC6400) i cant get it to run at 900mhz, but it is running at 890mhz 445x2 and stable.
CPU-Z

@Russ
here is the stuff you like..lol
MIPS
MB

OCCT is about done. i will post its results once done.
with the vcore bumped up it is warmer than before but we all know that.. i'm done OCD'ing about the temps. everyone and there brother has said my temps are fine and nothing to worry about.

oh yea i got some pics of the inside of the case now that i just did some major wire management.before i did the OC.

ok OCCT done and stable.Running Orthos now for a few hours.
got some graphs from OCCT and the pics of the wireing.

CPU1
CPU2
Vcore

now pics before and after.

before
http://i72.photobucket.com/albums/i196/Cincrob/Before.jpg
http://i72.photobucket.com/albums/i196/Cincrob/Before2.jpg

after
http://i72.photobucket.com/albums/i196/Cincrob/After.jpg
http://i72.photobucket.com/albums/i196/Cincrob/After2.jpg
http://i72.photobucket.com/albums/i196/Cincrob/After3.jpg

and the end product with all the drives in it

 

cincyrob,
Very nice Rob. I assume you are going to back it down a little bit for everyday use? I'll say this and then I will shut up! I would not exceed 1.3625 if you paid me to do it with that chip! I don't care if God told me it was OK, I still wouldn't do it! And I'm not really interested in hearing about it from anyone either. I've been told that by people with the knowledge that are people I respect and trust, and that's good enough for me!

Congrats on the OC and for a job well done.

BTW! Next time move the sliders so we can see the CPU speed please.

Best Regards,
Russ

 

For anyone with a Lexa Blackline....Are the instructions screwed up for you too??
It says to connect the power LED connectors to the power SWITCH pin on the mobo, and it doesn't even mention the actual power switch connector....so when I went to turn it on, nothing happened.
Just curious if I'm the only one with a faulty manual.....

sammorris: That wire work is beautiful. I never would have thought of that. My wires are all just jumbled together under my GPU.....

 

that's what i ment Russ. 1.3625v. there isnt even a setting for 1.3685v and im not going any higher than that.
im gonna play with it some. use dvd-rebuilder and see what kinda speed i get with that..lol
im just happy i could do it. a guy can only take so much discouragement for so lone. No im not gonna leave it there. back to 3.6-3.7 is where i will leave it for everyday usage.

heck i'll pat myself on the back. got it stable at 4.0 got some good wire management,installed the AD-7200S drive. pretty good job for someone that dont know what he is doing..


fixed that for ya..lol that first one is when i had the freq @450. this is at 445mhz

AND now i'm done........

 

Though they're a bit more expensive than most, Scythe S-Flex fans are highly recommended around here.
mrk: I never read the case manual for front connectors, I read the mobo manual - otherwise, how would you know?

 

mrk44,

I do a similar thing with mine. I zip tie them and store them in the un-used top 5.25 bay, which I never intend to use anyway. I also go from the bottom up with my Optical drives, leaving an empty bay between them. I see no reason for more than 2 drives anyway, although for a brief while I had a CD Burner as well as the DVD-Rom and the DVD Burner. I had it laying around from my Dell, so I installed it.

Best Regards,
Russ

 

kinda off topic here, sorry. but is anyone haven problems with IE? i cant get it to load a page. any page.
im on FF now....yea i know eveyone hates IE...lol

 

Rob,

nice job on the OC. don't take this the wrong way but those temps would scare me a bit. if you're gonna keep it there, I would seriously consider a better cpu hsf. your load temps are about 11C higher than mine at the same clock speed.



here's what cable management looks like thanks to the corsair 620HX's modular cabling.

 

cincyrob,
This is what I was talking about with the difference between your 8400 at 4.0GHz and my 6750 at 3.55GHz.
Math

MB


See what I mean about the small amount of difference at those speeds, considering yours runs 450MHz faster than mine and has 50% more L2 cache. That's why I don't really sweat my CPU not being a top overclocker. Mine's sort of middle of the road. Not the best, but not the worst either. Hey, I had 3 great ones in a row, so sooner or later I was going to get a so-so one! LOL!! At least I didn't do like a friend of mine did and get one that barely overclocked at all! LOL!!

Best Regards,
Russ

 

sam,

I agree, you really can't go wrong with a scythe S-Flex SFF21F. they're $20 at newegg + $6 for shipping but if you shop around you can pick one up for under $15 and get a better rate on the shipping. I paid $13 for mine but it was a combo discount with my 1st TRUE.

if you want fans with leds I would suggest an antec tricool. they also have a three speed switch in the event you don't have any fan headers on your mobo or have already used them all.

 

About 20% faster. Considering Cincy's CPU is only clocked 13% faster than yours, I'd say those results were about what I'd expect of any comparative overclock.
Mort: Agreed on the Antecs, while I'd still take a Scythe over them for noise/airflow, they're still reasonably good, and can be grabbed in various different colours.

 

@Mort
no offense taken buddy. i hear what your saying. and trust me i dont like seeing them temps that high. but even SOPH said my temps are ok.
plus i have been talking with some guys on another site. and one of htem has almost my identical setup

GA-P35-DS3R
E8400
AC freezer 7 pro
and crucial ballistix DDR2 800 mem
and his temps are IDENTICAL to mine.

unless someone from gigabyte can prove it to me it ISNT the board that is causeing the E8400 CPU to run hotter than other CPU's than there is nothing i can do. i dont think another cooler will make a differnce ive had 3 on it now????

at the other site ive been hanging out at. 90% of the people that have the E8400 have your (mort81) board or the X38/X48 gigabyte board
and a handfull of DFI lanparty boards...and none of them have the temps i have.


this is just wat i have found in some searching on my own. and yes i am thinking of down the road getting a X38 board just to see if im right. when i can come up with a couple hunred bucks i will get me one.

but like i said before i am more than happy with what i have accomplished with this build. yes i intend to back it down to 3.7ghz and leave it.

 

The temps might just be higher because you're using a higher voltage - different boards auto the same CPU to different levels - my X38-DS4 gives my E4300 20mV more than my P35C-DS3R did.

 

rob,

I'm not saying your mobo is at fault in any way. I'm talking about the difference being due to the cpu hsf. you and the others you mentioned all have an arctic freezer 7 pro and I have a TRUE. at the same OC, I am 10-11 degrees centigrade cooler. don't you think the cpu hsf has something to do with it?

 

Getting to 4Ghz on a Freezer 7 is no mean feat. To be honest, you should think yourself lucky you get those temps. Using a 65nm chip, those sort of speeds wouldn't have been possible without a TRUE or similar.