Help me

[[AK]Clay]

Did you get an aftermarket cpu fan or the one that came with it.

Glad your happy with man it smokes

I ordered the aftermarket one. Not so sure I need it, the one that came with it looks pretty decent. But it wasn't so expensive, and probably is better.

One thing I'm wondering - it looks like this thing can do dual video cards, and dual HDD for blazzing speed. I didn't go with that. I dont' think I will - this thing can turn into a $3000 project if you don't stop somehwere, but it sure does sound fun!

[[AK]Camelwalk]

I ordered the aftermarket one. Not so sure I need it, the one that came with it looks pretty decent. But it wasn't so expensive, and probably is better.

One thing I'm wondering - it looks like this thing can do dual video cards, and dual HDD for blazzing speed. I didn't go with that. I dont' think I will - this thing can turn into a $3000 project if you don't stop somehwere, but it sure does sound fun!

Its not SLI, they call it something different, dosent work they same but same concept. 1 card is plenty, trust me, I run everything at highest resolovtion and smooth as can be. The cpu fan is great man trust me will keep it chilled. Im running 25c idle.........And I bought everything new HD,MB,RAM,VIDEO,PWS,MONITER,DISKDRIVES<--------$1800.00 and worth every penny.

[[AK]Clay]

I started building this baby last night - this was fun!

OK, first question - on my NVidia card, the manual was extremely poor, so for the most part you're on your own figureing out what plugs into where. So take a look at the first picture. There's a tiny port, covered up by a rubber stopper with a little speaker emblem on it. The port is shown in the center of the pic, and the cover is laying off to the left. What is this for? With the card came a little cable - which is shown in the second pic. I assume this goes into that port on the card - where does the other end go?

Question 2. My "new" DVD ROM drive I just bought was made in 2006 and uses the anchient ribbon style plug. My new DVD-Burner uses the higher speed SATA plug. So for the 2006 DVD ROM drove, do I use the gray (Slave) plug, or the black (master) plug - since it will be the only drive on that ribbon? Any worries (i.e. will using this drive cause all my SATA drives to slow down to speed match?)

Question 3. My 3rd party processor cooler assembly alreayd had thermal paste on it, so I assume I didn't need any additional arctic silver application to the processor chip. Also, I have my chip cooler fan oriented to blow to the back of the case - as per instructions. But I'm now thinking it might be better to point it upward, since that huge big-boy vent fan is directly above it. How did you do it Camel?

Question 4. I'm not clear on how much arctic silver paste I'm supposed to use. On two heat sinks, I've used maybe a total of 1/3 a tube of this stuff. Is one to use this stuff sparingly, or liberally?

I broke down and ordered Vista 64 Home Basic, which probably won't arrive until Tuesday. I'll also be dual booting into Ubuntu 64, and will post which I like better.

[[AK]Camelwalk]

My fan is positioned the same way!

[[AK]Clay]

There's a tiny port, covered up by a rubber stopper with a little speaker emblem on it. The port is shown in the center of the pic, and the cover is laying off to the left. What is this for? With the card came a little cable - which is shown in the second pic. I assume this goes into that port on the card - where does the other end go?

After doing some digging, I found this:

Graphics cards of this series feature soundcard connectors for transmitting audio stream to HDMI (via a DVI-to-HDMI adapter). That is, the graphics card does not have an audio codec, but it receives audio signal from an external sound card. So, if this feature is important to you, make sure the bundle contains a special audio cable.

Not entirely certain how this works, but it sounds like this plugs into a port on your soundcard - if you have such. I'm guess it will then pass your digital audio out through the video plug to your TV, which if compatible, will then play the audio. Don't think I'll use that one too much, but pretty cool all the same. Now to check if my soundcard supports it.

[[AK]Camelwalk]

Hows the comp Clay?

[[AK]Clay]

Still waiting on my OS to show up.

To make a short story long - I was going to go WinXP 32/Ubuntu 64. 32 bit is a waste on a system like this, so I figured Vista 64/Ubuntu 64. I figured I'd just liberate a copy of Vista, but finally decided to purchase a legit copy. That copy arrives tonight. When dual booting Linux, it's better to do the Windows install first, before installing the Linux partition. So I built it, and it's been sitting for 3 days waiting for Windows to show up at the house.

I did boot it up once just to check out BIOS. And WOW! I love the Antec case, very quiet, and the glass side pannel is very nice. The motherboard has more lights on it than my house. When I first turned it on, I thought something exploded. The thing lights up like a Christmas tree. Very cool. You'll laugh, but I was terrified to turn it on. It's been so long, I could just see something going POOF!

One question for you. My system components were all running about 35 °C, except for my NorthBridge, which was at 50 C. That seems a bit warm, and a curious deviation from all the other temperatures. Any thoughts on that?

[[AK]Camelwalk]

My North Bridge runs hot as well, at about 47 c........thats the one problem I have read about this board........there are solutions just read some nerdy tech site. I read as long as it doesnt go over 60 c under load your ok! Do some research, there are after market heatsinks and puttys which are preety cheap and simple. Im leaving mine alone with a load at 57 c, I should be ok! The case really helps keep mine cool. And my PS fan also healps!

[[AK]Clay]

14541 3DMarks on 3DMark06

11600 is for a common system

33000 is the current fastest on record.


So fast, modern, but nothing crazy. I'm liking it so far, but no games installed yet.

[[AK]Rocks]

Great numbers, I sitting around 12500 with an AMD 9850 and GTX260. No overlclocking

[[AK]Clay]

Bleh, new PC is crashing like crazy. Haven't overclocked a thing. Flashed the BIOS, Updated Windows, etc, no joy.

Blue screen of death, lockups, etc. Not sure what the problem is. What diagnostics software do folks recommend for tracking down hardware issues?

[[AK]Mydrial]

Well....the windows event viewer log is usually where I start. And the last system one of my friends built was plagued by constant random lockups and blue screens, was due to unmatched and out of spec memory timing between matching banks. Just a thought unlikely tho. If I think of anything else Ill post.

Sorry to hear your having issues.

[[AK]Clay]

Well....the windows event viewer log is usually where I start. And the last system one of my friends built was plagued by constant random lockups and blue screens, was due to unmatched and out of spec memory timing between matching banks. Just a thought unlikely tho. If I think of anything else Ill post.

Sorry to hear your having issues.

Thanks Myd. To be honest, I do suspect my memory right now. Running the memory testing diagnostic tool that comes w/ the Ubuntu install CD. So far it's not found any errors. Hm... I might let it run overnight (it's a rather lengthy series of tests).

[[AK]Rocks]

Post the BSOD event. Not whole thing.

[[AK]Abaddon]

I know this is basic, but check the seating on everything -- video cards, memory, power cables, etc again. Sometimes you think they are seated firmly, and they are not. Also, check the timings on your memory sticks and manually set them in BIOS to the same settings. Sometimes the "autodetect" function does not work right for memory in BIOS.