VenomXt
\
- Joined
- 11 Mar 2004
- Messages
- 3,454
Ok ok yes i named my new rig NASA its a inside joke hehe. Here we go
added some recent pictures in post number 17 the rest are a few days old and show a wrong set up as i have now.
Ok after a whole lot of sh*t My new rig is up and running. Im going to include all the info for it in this thread for right now, but will be posting in the appropriate threads for overclocking ideas.
Here we go. Here are the parts
Ok my gripes first then my pleasure.
Ok first off id just like to say NVIDIA has really dropped the ball on its nforce4 with raid drivers. This was the biggest pain in my neck. I kept on getting blue screens trying to install windows with them. (i am not the only one apparently) My work around was using one of the raptors in raid (without drivers installed) and putting XP on it. Then plugging in the second drive and using the in windows tool to build the raid 0 stripping array.
All i can say is it finally worked but this took 4 hours to figure out how to do. (im new with raid) where if it would of worked like it was suppose to, it would of taken 15 mins. It can all be blamed on the raid drivers and the nforce4 chipset.
My second big gripe was that while my ram is supposedly badas* it came stock running at timing 3-3-3-8 and was causing windows problems. While running memtest 86+ no problems presented themselves (on second 1 gig set first was bad) i was unable to get windows booted. (installed XP with 512 problems with the dual channel gig) The ram was suppose to be running at 2-2-2-8 after a whole lot of looking around in the bios and playing with it i got it set to run at that and it seems to be doing ok. Although i will definitely need to tweak it more.
My finale huge gripe goes to the cross flow fan. When you pay 30 bucks for a fan you don’t normally have to re-tap the holes to get the screws that they provided to work. Unfortunately this wasent the case for me. After re-drilling the holes i was able to mount the fan in the CM stacker case with 3 out of the 4 screws (motor blocks one of the holes. I hope this actually helps some stuff out but we will see looks cool anyways.
Ok now with the bitc*ing done lets go to some pictures and some benchmarks. For right now all the pics i have are of me getting everything cabled in right and nice. When i clean up my house and such i will post the final closed case running pic hehe.
Here are the CPU-z screen shots. Im gona repost these in that thread that everyone else is. Im hopeing people can help me get the most out of the system with overclocking. I spent about an extra 100 on stuff in premium parts to be able to overclock.
My first run at the above setting in 3dmark 2005 with latest drivers in everything i ran a 4887. Which seems a bit low to me and im hoping with some over clocking of the CPU and GPU i will be able to raise it a lot.
Ok now my impressions.
I love the CM stacker case OMG its big and helps everything run so damn cool. With the parts i have listed i can barley hear my computer running. It really is super quiet. The loudest part of the whole system is the hardives going when they are loading up something and its a minimal decimal. This is a huge improvement over my last rig which was like a vacuum on all the time hehe.
I havet had the chance to play a lot of games but Half life 2 runs wonderfully and so does the demo for battlefield 2 it does looks fantastic, Im gona go buy it later today probably. I will try to install doom 3 later, I really want to see what fights look like without dropping too 2 frames per sec with those damn imps. Lots more game benches and feedback will be coming.
Overall the DFI LANPARTY i have (look above for specs) is a great board. It really is built for over clocking the BIOS is proof of this. I still have a lot to learn about most everything so I will be spending a lot of time on over clocking forums with it. My favorite thing about it so far is the fact that you can save up to 4 CMOS settings for overclocking this makes things go so much faster when you dont have to rest values for everything.
The Zalman CPU fan needs a great big pat on the back. Im using it on its quiet mode and i cant hear it (120 mm fan) yet it seems to be keeping my cpu nice and cool in the BIOS. the ntune system monitoring utility sucks for telling me what my CPU temp is so i need to find something else. Maybe im just reading it wrong its just not easy to make out. Anyone have a suggestion for a CPU temp and GPU temp monitoring utility. Or advice on using ntune?
My big thing for this rig is going to be overclocking. I know i will be able to get my GPU at at least 420 core (comes at 350) and my CPU at 2.6-.7 (comes at 2.2) once that is done and i have nice profiles set up for them this will be a really nice rig for gaming (it already is stock). Overall im very happy with everything frustrated here and there with the raid and the memory but other than that i love it all.
Please feel free to ask questions or give hints and feedback. When i get sometime i will start posting other things as well.
EDITix FIXED as well as my horrible grammer in places.
added some recent pictures in post number 17 the rest are a few days old and show a wrong set up as i have now.
Ok after a whole lot of sh*t My new rig is up and running. Im going to include all the info for it in this thread for right now, but will be posting in the appropriate threads for overclocking ideas.
Here we go. Here are the parts
1. DFI LANPARTY UT nF4 SLI-DR Socket 939 NVIDIA nForce4 SLI ATX AMD Motherboard - Retail
Link
2. AMD Athlon 64 3500+ Venice Integrated into Chip FSB Socket 939 Processor Model ADA3500DAA4BP - OEM
Link
3. ZALMAN CNPS7700-CU 120mm 2 Ball Cooling Fan - Retail
link
4. CORSAIR XMS 1GB (2 x 512MB) 184-Pin DDR SDRAM DDR 400 (PC 3200) Unbuffered Dual Channel Kit System Memory Model TWINX1024-3200C2PT - Retail
Link
5. Western Digital Raptor WD360GD 36.7GB 10,000 RPM Serial ATA150 Hard Drive - OEM
Link
6. Leadtek PX6800GT TDH Geforce 6800GT 256MB GDDR3 PCI-Express x16 Video Card - Retail
Link
7. SEASONIC S12-500 ATX12V 500W Power Supply - Retail
Model #: S12-500
Link
8. COOLER MASTER STC-T01-UW Grey with Black trim Aluminum Bezel, SECC Chassis ATX Full Tower Computer Case - Retail
Link
9. Cooler Master Cross Flow Fan for CM-Stacker, Model "STF-B01-E1" -RETAIL - Retail
link
Ok my gripes first then my pleasure.
Ok first off id just like to say NVIDIA has really dropped the ball on its nforce4 with raid drivers. This was the biggest pain in my neck. I kept on getting blue screens trying to install windows with them. (i am not the only one apparently) My work around was using one of the raptors in raid (without drivers installed) and putting XP on it. Then plugging in the second drive and using the in windows tool to build the raid 0 stripping array.
All i can say is it finally worked but this took 4 hours to figure out how to do. (im new with raid) where if it would of worked like it was suppose to, it would of taken 15 mins. It can all be blamed on the raid drivers and the nforce4 chipset.
My second big gripe was that while my ram is supposedly badas* it came stock running at timing 3-3-3-8 and was causing windows problems. While running memtest 86+ no problems presented themselves (on second 1 gig set first was bad) i was unable to get windows booted. (installed XP with 512 problems with the dual channel gig) The ram was suppose to be running at 2-2-2-8 after a whole lot of looking around in the bios and playing with it i got it set to run at that and it seems to be doing ok. Although i will definitely need to tweak it more.
My finale huge gripe goes to the cross flow fan. When you pay 30 bucks for a fan you don’t normally have to re-tap the holes to get the screws that they provided to work. Unfortunately this wasent the case for me. After re-drilling the holes i was able to mount the fan in the CM stacker case with 3 out of the 4 screws (motor blocks one of the holes. I hope this actually helps some stuff out but we will see looks cool anyways.
Ok now with the bitc*ing done lets go to some pictures and some benchmarks. For right now all the pics i have are of me getting everything cabled in right and nice. When i clean up my house and such i will post the final closed case running pic hehe.
Here are the CPU-z screen shots. Im gona repost these in that thread that everyone else is. Im hopeing people can help me get the most out of the system with overclocking. I spent about an extra 100 on stuff in premium parts to be able to overclock.
My first run at the above setting in 3dmark 2005 with latest drivers in everything i ran a 4887. Which seems a bit low to me and im hoping with some over clocking of the CPU and GPU i will be able to raise it a lot.
Ok now my impressions.
I love the CM stacker case OMG its big and helps everything run so damn cool. With the parts i have listed i can barley hear my computer running. It really is super quiet. The loudest part of the whole system is the hardives going when they are loading up something and its a minimal decimal. This is a huge improvement over my last rig which was like a vacuum on all the time hehe.
I havet had the chance to play a lot of games but Half life 2 runs wonderfully and so does the demo for battlefield 2 it does looks fantastic, Im gona go buy it later today probably. I will try to install doom 3 later, I really want to see what fights look like without dropping too 2 frames per sec with those damn imps. Lots more game benches and feedback will be coming.
Overall the DFI LANPARTY i have (look above for specs) is a great board. It really is built for over clocking the BIOS is proof of this. I still have a lot to learn about most everything so I will be spending a lot of time on over clocking forums with it. My favorite thing about it so far is the fact that you can save up to 4 CMOS settings for overclocking this makes things go so much faster when you dont have to rest values for everything.
The Zalman CPU fan needs a great big pat on the back. Im using it on its quiet mode and i cant hear it (120 mm fan) yet it seems to be keeping my cpu nice and cool in the BIOS. the ntune system monitoring utility sucks for telling me what my CPU temp is so i need to find something else. Maybe im just reading it wrong its just not easy to make out. Anyone have a suggestion for a CPU temp and GPU temp monitoring utility. Or advice on using ntune?
My big thing for this rig is going to be overclocking. I know i will be able to get my GPU at at least 420 core (comes at 350) and my CPU at 2.6-.7 (comes at 2.2) once that is done and i have nice profiles set up for them this will be a really nice rig for gaming (it already is stock). Overall im very happy with everything frustrated here and there with the raid and the memory but other than that i love it all.
Please feel free to ask questions or give hints and feedback. When i get sometime i will start posting other things as well.
EDITix FIXED as well as my horrible grammer in places.
Last edited: